If there’s one thing that’s for certain in Trump 2.0, it is that there’s no certainty on tariffs. The magnitude of the reversal in US-China tariffs announced on Monday turned out to be much larger than expected

Maersk’s chief executive describes a scramble by US businesses to replace Chinese goods and keep inventories from depleting. If there is no thaw in the US-China trade war by this summer, time will run out, raising the risk of a recession

Trade relations between the US and China have already been poisoned by tariffs and the USTR port fee decision. The newly reintroduced SHIPS Act, if passed into law, would add yet another layer of protectionism

Container lines would have had no choice but to pay enormous US port fees under the draft proposal. The final decision should allow most liner operators to avoid fees by redeploying ships. It also singles out one company — China’s Cosco — with the severest penalties

The stock market cheered Donald Trump’s decision to temporarily lower tariffs on Chinese smartphones, laptops and other electronics. But this does not move the needle for transpacific ocean shipping demand, which is still pointing downward

World trade is being redirected at a moment’s notice by social media posts of a single person: Donald Trump. Wednesday’s surprise social media post was a bad sign for the future of US-China trade but positive for container flows from other countries

Shipping forecasts are having a ‘chaos theory’ moment. Trump tariffs and US port fees imply a volatile mix of positives and negatives, and no one really knows how this will play out for rates, although shipowners predict they will ultimately profit, just as they did in past disruptions

The Caribbean offers a case study in the severe unintended consequences of the US port fee plan. This market is uniquely vulnerable to fallout. Businesses in the islands are already exploring replacement options for US exports

Business leaders have descended on Washington DC to fight the plan to tax US port calls. Will the US bow to industry pressure on proposed port fees, or will Donald Trump go forward anyway on the simplistic premise of ‘China bad, US shipbuilding good’? What happens next will be a litmus test of practicality versus ideology

Shipping could face a major disruption if Trump is not bluffing about taking back the Panama Canal. Hopes that the Hutchison sale would placate the US and solve the problem have been dashed 

The supply chain disruption in the US was historically severe during the pandemic. It might be even worse if the Trump administration goes forward with its proposed port fee plan targeting Chinese ships and non-Chinese operators of Chinese ships, according to feedback submitted to the USTR

The US was viewed as a reliable trading partner and guarantor of global security until very recently. That reputation is in tatters. If America does not change course, it will have major long-term implications for global trade, warned speakers at TPM25

MSC chief executive Soren Toft believes ‘sanity will prevail’ and the US port fee plan won’t go ahead as currently written. If it does, it would lead to higher costs for shippers, port congestion and reduced US container services, he warned attendees at the TPM25 conference

The US Trade Representative proposal that targets Chinese maritime and shipbuilding interests is extremely aggressive and represents the largest financial threat to vessel operators thus far during the Trump administration. If the proposal is approved by the US president, it would have major implications for all US import and export trades in all shipping sectors

On one hand, US commerce secretary Harold Lutnick’s pledge to tax foreign-flag ships could be just talk. On the other, cruise stocks lost $9bn in market cap on Thursday as a result of those comments — and Lutnick also mentioned tankers

Bad news is often good news for shipping stocks. There is bad news for the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, which is good news for container shipping stocks, because it lowers the chance of a near-term return to the Suez route that would inject a large amount of effective capacity into container trades

Last year, US imports were not far below levels seen during the pandemic boom of 2021-2022. This year is starting off even stronger, with January imports up 9% and first-half volumes projected to exceed 2024’s. The big unknown is how tariffs will play out for cargo demand

Trump’s new trade war offers some positives for ocean shipping: Disruptions generally boost spot rates and more containerised cargo could be frontloaded ahead of expected future tariffs. The negative is that tariffs will likely hurt personal and business consumption, reducing future cargo demand

US Senate hearing speakers theorised that Chinese workers could collapse under-construction bridge over Panama Canal, directed by spies in Balboa and Cristobal ‘observation posts’, to block US military forces from responding to a Chinese attack in Taiwan

Articles on ocean shipping: tankers, dry bulk, containers, LNG, LPG, ship finance