Trump launches next front in the trade war with China.
New Port Fees on Chinese Ships
Politico reports Port Fees are the Next Front in the Trade War.
The U.S.-China trade war has lurched from fragile truce to bare-knuckle brawl. It is about to intensify further when the two countries hike fees on each others’ commercial ships Tuesday — a move that, on the U.S. side, could end up raising consumer costs and driving down imports from Asia.
Along with a new tussle over China’s global chokehold on the supply of critical minerals — which prompted President Donald Trump to threaten 100 percent tariffs and new curbs on “all critical software” in retaliation — China’s Ministry of Transport announced Friday that it is matching the Trump administration’s planned increase in port fees on Chinese-owned and operated ships.
”This is symbolic — less than 1 percent of U.S. vessels docking in China annually are U.S.-flagged vessels, so the reality is this basically has no real impact,” said Cameron Johnson, a senior partner at Shanghai-based supply chain consultancy Tidalwave Solutions. “But it signals that Beijing will match every single effort the United States targets against China — if the U.S. sanctions a Chinese company, they’re going to sanction a U.S. company. If we impose export controls on technology, they’re going to do export controls on technology. We have just now escalated to a whole new level of trade warfare that nobody was expecting.”
The Trump administration says the U.S. port fees will help spark a renaissance for the U.S. shipbuilding industry and reduce what the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative says is a risky U.S. dependency on Chinese shippers.
Major ocean carriers have signaled they plan to absorb the new costs. But U.S. retailers, manufacturers and shipping experts warn that will likely be short-lived and that eventually they will have to pass the fees on to consumers. The higher costs will further strain the shipping industry, which transports more than 80 percent of global trade and is already grappling with the disruptive effects of Trump’s sweeping tariffs.
Cargo imports to the U.S. carried by ships that are either Chinese-owned or operated by Chinese companies will face port fees of $50 per ton starting next week, with the fee set to increase by $30 per ton each year over the next three years. Non-Chinese operators of ships built in China will also face charges, according to the new policy. China’s retaliatory port charges will also annually escalate to a maximum of $157 in 2028.
The new penalties are the result of a petition filed last year by five U.S. labor unions, which triggered a trade investigation that found that China’s maritime and shipbuilding practices are harmful to the U.S. industry, which has been in decline since the late 1970s.
“If the goal is to get U.S. shipbuilding back up and running, we think there are other ways that we need to focus on doing that — just putting fees on Chinese vessels isn’t going to solve that issue,” said Jonathan Gold, the vice president of supply chain and customs policy at the National Retail Federation, a D.C.-based group that represents companies in the retail sector.
In a statement released Sunday. a spokesperson for China’s Commerce ministry said the the port fee retaliation represented “necessary defensive actions aimed at safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese industries and enterprises, as well as preserving a fair competitive environment in the international shipping and shipbuilding markets.”
The U.S. port fees on Chinese ships are predicted to have a much larger impact on the shipping industry. Maritime consultancy firm Alphaliner found in an analysis published earlier this month that the fees will cost the top 10 container shipping companies — including China’s state-owned shipper COSCO, Denmark’s Maersk and France’s CMA CGM — a total of $3.2 billion by the end of 2026.
“The fees can’t help but have a constraint on the shipping cargo capacity coming to the U.S. and with less capacity, the pricing of shipping goes up meaning you could literally have empty shelves during Christmas,” said John McCown, a fellow at the Center for Maritime Strategy and an expert on international container shipping.
“We’re looking at a full year or more where you’ll see double-digit declines in container traffic and that’s going to have a direct impact on dock workers,” McCown said. “The truck drivers that move those loads, the warehousing — everybody that touches that is going to be hurt and there’ll be jobs lost.”
Deesacalate Talk Vanishes
There was talk over the weekend of efforts to deescalate the trade war. That talk lasted all of two days.
Reciprocal Port Fees
Economic Hostile Act to Not Buy Soybeans
Why can’t China buy soybeans wherever it wants? Who started this trade war anyway?
Farm Bankruptcies
China’s Export Surge Without the US
Paper Tiger Department
Trump’s Myopic View of Trade
Trump views trade as having a winner and a loser.
But other than coercion or force, both sides believe they benefit from a deal or there is no deal.
Trump changed all of that into “Trump Knows Best”.
Trump will not honor even his own deals. There is no trust and there won’t be trust.
Why Tariffs Won’t Fix Manufacturing
- No one knows what the hell trump will do, what exceptions he will make, or when.
- The lead times for steel, aluminum, and copper mill expansion are too large.
- Electricity costs are rising
- Intermediate production demand is getting killed.
Related Posts
February 11, 2025: Trump’s Steel Tariffs Now Will Work as Good as the First Time
Q: How’s that? A: Very poorly.
October 12, 2025: US and Canada Have a New Spat Over Auto Tariffs
“Our relationship will never again be what it was,” said Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney
September 6, 2025: Trump’s Aluminum Tariffs Seriously Backfire Already
Tariffs did not and will not bring production back to the US.
And port fees will not make shipbuilding in the US great again. The only thing Trump will accomplish from the new spat is higher prices.
General fight the last war.
Too simple, outdated strategies and tactics.
Everybody knows what is coming advanced in years.
Doesn’t know the strength and weakness of enemy and itself.
That’s why TACO will miserably fail.
To quote Martin Sonneborn, European MP in rather undiplomatic language:
“So when China now retaliates with a medicine that in our part of the world we are used to administering exclusively to others—export controls on rare earths and the like—it once again demonstrates the strategic stupidity of all the so-called leaders of the Western world. On this side of the chessboard, it would have been difficult to imagine a more idiotic act of grandiose self-harm, which – in terms of those solemnly (self-)imposed armament goals – borders on sheer self-sabotage, than a trade war with China.
Given China’s quasi-monopoly, which would take the West 20 years to break, and given the importance of these materials for almost EVERYTHING that can shoot, fly, and kill, the morons of the Coalition of the Killing (and their stupid Big Daddy) can forget about any “confrontation with Russia” in the foreseeable future, just as they can forget about Iran, Venezuela, Greenland, and, well, China, of course.”
https://tkp.at/2025/10/15/sonneborn-von-idioten-umzingelt
4 Million jobs in Germany extrapolating this to the US results in 12 Million give or take a couple.
If you want to crash economies that’s the way to go.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/europe-rare-earth-trap-4-million-german-jobs-risk-beijing-tightens
I’d hate to be employed in the automobile industry. Or the arms industry. 1:0 for China.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/chipmaker-nexperias-china-arm-tells-staff-ignore-dutch-hq-deepening-semiconductor
Rothschild outpost in Den Hague caves in. As expected
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/dutch-retreat-beijing-wins-control-fight-over-nexperia-after-chip-shipments-squeezed
Trump seems to be digging in harder. Now his Treasury Secretary is saying the US needs price floors for some of the industries that were going to supposedly blossom as soon as China quit screwing us: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/15/trump-xi-china-bessent-price-floor-rare-earth-critical-mineral.html
Well, at least it’s not government tax dollars/tariff money going to specific constituents – like the bootstrap American farmers.
Now our Defense Department (sorry, Department of War) can use taxpayer dollars to pay higher prices to American producers for rare earth minerals to then pay American producers of weapons to bomb China later.
This has got to be better than just letting US consumers buy whatever Chinese products they want, right?
Man, I’m hoping for a major TACO, but unfortunately it’s already Wednesday
“The Trump administration says the U.S. port fees will help spark a renaissance for the U.S. shipbuilding industry.”
The competition isn’t even close:
“Last year, U.S. shipyards built fewer than 10 commercial ships. China shipyards, many of which build both commercial and military vessels, turned out well over 1,000.”
Selected quotes from:US Port Fees, and $3 Billion in Costs, Loom for Owners of Chinese-Built Ships
i wonder does any of mor11ons in trump;’s administration even have a small comprehension that shipbuilding is ONE OF MOST TIME CONSUMING ANd MONEY INTENSIVE industries overall??
and nobody,again nobody, is going to invest 1 $ into unless there will be policy for next 10 20 years?
DID ANYONE HEAR ANYTHING FROM CHINA???
it seems THEY JUST DONT PAY MUCH ATTENTION TO USA ANYMORE.!!
“We have just now escalated to a whole new level of trade warfare that nobody was expecting.”
What a massive pile of BS!!! Did this moron think China or Trump was going to roll over & throw in the white towell?
If Trump’s stated goal on Liberation Day was to raise revenue from tariffs while simultaneously reducing US dependence on China for strategic goods slowly over time, who in their right mind is surprised that we’ve arrived at this point? Why would ANYONE think that this is controversial? It’s not! You may not like it, or you may think Trump is 10X more economically illiterate than Brain Dead Joe Biden.
Trump is doing exactly what he said he was going to do, and China is reacting exactly as anyone would have predicted they would. And it will take many years to bear the fruit that America needs it to bear. Most importantly, we can say the trade war MAY get worse, depending on SCOTUS.
China, CA & MX are all waiting on SCOTUS to rule on Trump’s EO authority during a declared emergency to wrest control of tariffing from Congress. If Trump loses, then China, CA & MX win. All eyes are on you SCOTUS!
Now whether or not a republican keeps the WH in 2028 or the GOP maintains its majorities in Congress next Nov are entirely different matters. Fortunately for Trump, Dems like Schumer, Mandani, AOC, Newsom, Crockett, et al are all doing a bang-up job of cratering the Dems chances of taking advantage of TACO potentially overplaying his hand.
Executives, like martinis are shaken and stirred….
https://futurism.com/robots-and-machines/western-executives-shaken-visiting-china
Cool! Let China race off towards having machines do everything, so they can put 1B+ people out of work & paying them a UBI that gives them just enough money to scrap by while the overlords live like kings.
Lol. And you don’t think the US is trying to do the same with AI and robots?
Dude, you’re the one posting days old stories about Ford’s Farley having a love fest with China’s robots.
>Trump views trade as having a winner and a loser
Which is really funny seeing as he has done literally nothing but lose if you want to frame it by his own standards.
Trump wanted a trade deal. Xi opened a new front instead
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/11/chinas-rare-earth-gambit-reveals-the-next-phase-of-its-economic-warfare-00602692?utm_content=politico/magazine/Politics&utm_source=flipboard
Fortunately the American people don’t buy much from China.
Oh, wait…
Are the Americans prepared to pay $75+ for a single pair of boxer shorts?
(Notwithstanding that single pair is an oxymoron.)
Going commando will set us free!
Just repair them. Or make your own.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent condemned China’s decision last week to step up curbs on its exports of rare-earth metals, calling the actions part of a broader plan by Beijing to control the world’s supply chains.
=====from zh
it took 4pct fall in spx500 to GO TACO AGAIN
it is getting too embarrassing..
just couple days ago bessent that ‘fagatory’ looking mor11on said: CHINA IS COLLAPSING.. IF IT IS TRUE, why not to just wait ?? what is this all talking ?
======
btw, DID ANYONE HEAR ANYTHING FROM CHINA???
it seems THEY JUST DONT PAY MUCH ATTENTION TO USA ANYMORE.!!
alx
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/10/china-reacts-after-u-s-pushed-netherlands-to-seize-chinese-owned-company.html
yeah.. I READ. it was stupid for .. Holland !
Holland has huge , major hub in Rotterdam, one of biggest in world
IT WILL TAKE JUST prohibition for china accepting ships from Holland-Rotterdam
and probably 20pct of country will die!
Just like Brazil, which saw its exports to the US decline 30% in September after the Orange House imposed a tariff of 50% on its wares for political reasons, saw its overall exports grow by 6%. The world is a larger market than the US. Exporters will continue to find other markets for their wares, but the US will find no other sources of such wares, whether in quantity, or in quality, or in price. In other words, the Usonian standard of living will fall.
You can “win” a war if you follow up your trade war with kinetic war. Overturn the table, shoot your enemy’s trading partners. Pirate their tankers, take their reserves, frame them for genocide or novel disease.
We serfs are in cattle cars on a moving train. Think about where our rulers are shipping us. If the train stops, look around for a place to save yourself. (Maybe that just means buying an acre, building greenhouses, and feeding yourself.)
GLTA!! I sincerely mean that even to people who disagree and down vote!
problem is USA/ trump and his minions are moro11ns!
they know nothing about china.
=1 China is homogenous country
=2 there is NO inside bad actors, for good or bad!
=3 china has backing from from major commodities powers : Russia/ brazil
=4 China is building hub of world!
=5 china is pretty much land locked country, insulated geographically from bad actors : Siberia / Russia north, huge mountains on west , south /west,
and only seashore on east.
“trump and his minions are moro11ns!”
Agreed
“=1 China is homogenous country”
Untrue.
“=2 there is NO inside bad actors, for good or bad!”
Clarify (and please fix the grammar)
“=1 China is homogenous country”
Untrue.
==
buddy , if YOU SAY SOMETHING IS UNTRUE, you must put out arguments!
otherwise nobody gives a rat;s azz about your opinion.!
====
#Clarify (and please fix the grammar)
buddy i dont like wasting my time on uneducated american peasants who never traveled outside local county!
unless you have a least couple university degrees, at least foreign language
and lived-worked outside Wisconsin for considerable time, I am afraid we ARE NOT IN EVEN SAME BALLPARK , clarification wise!
alx
ps
statistically 2 out of 3 Americans never traveled outside USA borders, and dont know single foreign language! that is impressive.
Buddy I don’t think anyone cares about a guy who can’t even spell “ass” right. My five year old nephew can spell ass right.
I would like to hear your grounds. He sure was too simplistic, but the question is still valid (you are the one stating an opinion in the first place). China is not homogeneous; they have more than 50 ethnicities, with social tensions between them. Some of those tensions are serious. They don’t have disruptive discrepancies of culture (like Arabs and Jews), but have big cultural differences too. And they have inside actors, but those are strongly repressed by the Communist Party; therefore, they have strong harmonization and unification, but at a high cost. In practice, it is stability without pluralism. The Chinese political system is so effective in maintaining order and social control that ideological, religious, or cultural movements opposed to the Party are unable to consolidate.
Genius at work here–wait until he finds out that one fork of the plan means that you need allies
EISEN: You’ve taken stakes in 5 companies now. Are there going to be more?
BESSENT: I wouldn’t be surprised. When we get an announcement like this week with China on rare earths, you realize we have to be self-sufficient or we have to be sufficient with our allies
An analyst commented during a Hedgeye Investment conference that Xi is skating on thin ice and is universally despised by the political bureaucracy in the background. He does only surround himself with trembling sycophants. There supposedly is a good possibility that he may have a sudden departure due to an “illness” or otherwise. A new leader its hoped will help unfreeze the stalemate with better diplomacy. None of this is reported in the mainstream media.
Just like Trump surrounded by trembling sycophants and groveling a Pakistani PM and Arab generals. But Xi may be shaky and lets hope he crashes before the US economy’s hurt by Trumponomics.
Sure, Xi is on the way out. In other bullshit news, Putin is unpopular in Russia.
will MAHA let us produce the used cooking oil we need to make biodiesel?
who will fry all the wontons? who should eat those wontons? aren’t seed oils bad?
wasn’t the story, Drill, baby, drill? now it’s fry, daddy, fry?
and what about the big guy just finding out that China was “purposely” not buying our soybeans?
he thought that our beans were the only ones in the market?
Did China use to buy the Usonian soybean by mere chance?
We buy used cooking oil from China. Needs to stop. National security risk. We only want new cooking oil. America first. Eat only soyburgers and soyfries. Make Farmers Great Again.
I’m guessing this one will be walked back soon.
Markets basically at ATH, futures +.75%, yeah, no one thinks the sky is falling here or anywhere. Only this blog comment section which then gets extreme and says it’s being run into the ground and we’re about to lose reserve currency status, refuted may times by the blogger.
I’ll believe things are getting dicey when the market prices even the smallest negative bias into prices but other than the pandemic and 2 weeks in April, has risen unabated for 16+ years. I see “shoeshine boys” acting like billionaires now. House prices out of reach for anyone not owning a home or stocks.
No one I know is willing to part with their passive gains to drive prices lower in aggregate. Port fees ain’t gonna move them either, the inflationary impact actually benefits them…until it doesn’t.
Trump has run a lot of businesses into the ground. He may now manage to run the American economy into the ground, If there is ever going to be a Nobel prize for economic incompetence, Trump will be the betting market favorite.
I nominate the Prince of the House of Orange for the Ignobel prize of Economy!
Here we are… at that point where Trump’s “plan” is such madness that one does not even need to point out its flaws, they are innumerable and self-evident to those with eyes they voluntarily employ.
Mish, given rapid developments I’d be interested in your views on the USD, both value and reserve currency status. Surely the latter is becoming a risk?
USA $ is dead, but not quite dead.
problem is , there is no alternative.
eu is worse
brics dont have common currency
china yan is managed
gold is only alternative. not yet though
gold has already be proven to not be an alternative.
De-dollarization has been turbo charged from gradual to asap.