The USA has suspended port fees on China-built cargo ships docking at American ports for one year, FreightWaves reported.
Officially announced on 9 November by the United States Trade Representative (USTR), the suspension came days after the authority gave the public one day to submit comments on the proposal, the 10 November report said.
The port fees took effect on 14 October and were introduced following an investigation started under the Biden administration that claimed China used unfair trade practices and other advantages to build a dominant position in shipbuilding, FreightWaves wrote.
Vessels built at Chinese shipyards docking at US ports were charged at the rate of US$50/tonne for each voyage, meaning large ships could face millions of dollars in fees for a typical rotation.
“The action will be suspended for one year, and as of 12:01 am Eastern Standard Time on 10 November 2025,” USTR said in a formal notice.
China had also dropped retaliatory port fees on US-flagged ships, part of a wide-ranging trade agreement reached during a meeting between President Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping in South Korea in October, the report said.
The fees had led some shipping lines to reconfigure US services, shuffling port rotations and shifting tonnage out of some voyages to reduce the financial impact, while other shipping companies had seen the departure of US directors as China’s charges penalised carriers with American ownership stakes, FreightWaves wrote.
After complaints from US shippers, Washington exempted some bulk ships arriving empty for loading of US agricultural and energy products from the charges earlier this year.
China’s state-owned carrier Cosco, the world’s fourth-largest container, and Hong Kong’s OOCL had made few changes, opting to absorb the fees, the report said.
However, some observers criticised the move to suspend the fees, saying they were promoted to help underwrite a revival of the US maritime sector.
“Suspending these port fees is a significant strategic mistake,” Hunter Stires, a maritime consultant and former strategist to current Navy Secretary John Phelan, said in a LinkedIn post.
“Billed as a “reciprocal” move, it is in fact anything but reciprocal. Withdrawing US fees on over 10,000 Chinese ships in order to remove China’s retaliatory fees on 183 US ships is rightly understood as an American surrender.”
Hunter called for diplomacy to rally US allies, particularly in Europe, to join a multilateral port fee regime on Chinese ships.
