Shipping lines reactions to USTR proposal for penalising Chinese ships at US ports

 Earlier this year, USTR (United states Trade Representative) proposed for US sanctions on Chinese ships and then, the charges proposed were approx. 1 million USD for ships handled by Chinese shipping lines and up to 1.5 million USD for ships manufactured by Chinese agencies, but after reconsidering the concerns of the Importers and American consumer, now the penalty fee is reduced and is as below

Below is the penalty fee expected to start from 14th October 2025.

Below is the reactions from top three shipping lines

Maersk

There has been no official comment from Maersk but they are suspending one of their US West coast services.

 Usually, most shipping lines are suspending their China exports services for October month due to Golden Week holidays but Maersk is suspending TP9 service from October 2025 to December 2025 and there is no news of future renewal of this service

As per recent news, Maersk is going to suspend its TP9 service of Gemini co-operation from October 2025.

The service-connected East Asia to West America and the routing was Xiamen- Busan – Long Beach.

The last sailing for this service will be Synergy Keelung 539E, sailing from Xiamen on 23rd Sept’ 2025.

MSC

As per the recent comment from MSC CEO Soren Toft MSC is Proactively restructuring the global service network.

CMA

As per recent statements from CMA, they are also restructuring their services to avoid any type of penalty imposition to their customers. Also, since CMA is having Ocean Alliance with COSCO – Evergreen – OOCL thus might face challenges

 Conclusion

Most of the shipping lines will not be able to bear the extra penalty fee as it would go in millions for large vessels, thus they will opt out for below options

• Restructuring their vessels, that is moving Chinese vessel out of Services touching American ports and putting in the non-chinese built vessels.

• Moving in small size vessels

• Moving in vessels fitting the exceptional requirement

• At end, imposing a surcharge to the customers

Though it not be easy for shipping lines to quickly evolve solutions for this challenge as America is the largest global importer and China is the largest commercial ship builder and second largest exporter to USA, thus vessels need to be aligned properly. Shipping lines can also reduce the vessels calls at USA ports. More over the penalty and loss will be borne by the end customer the shipper and consignee which will be impact the global trade and global GDP.