America Should Stick to its Guns on Port Fees for Chinese Ships
The MOC
By
Hunter Stires
November 12, 2025
The U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) praiseworthy action across both sides of the political transition to investigate and then impose port fees on ships built, owned, and operated by the People’s Republic of China has marked a vital initial step towards pushing back on China’s decades-long drive to dominate the global maritime transportation system, which has come at the direct expense of American workers, industry, and seapower. Indeed, USTR’s Section 301 investigation, a key part of the broader Maritime Statecraft strategy that I helped conceptualize and implement under the leadership of Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro and which has since been largely embraced by the Trump Administration, is among the first direct challenges the United States has mounted to China’s targeted maritime industrial policy.[1] That China has opposed this U.S. initiative so vociferously, imposing its own retaliatory fees on U.S. flagged and built vessels and now raising the issue to the level of head-of-state negotiations, speaks to the seriousness with which the Chinese Communist Party regards USTR’s port fees as a threat to its maritime strategy. Yet following a meeting between President Trump and Chairman Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Community summit in South Korea, USTR now proposes a one year suspension of its port fees, in exchange for China suspending its own port fees on U.S. ships. For the United States to now abandon such an impactful prospective initiative even before its implementation represents a significant strategic mistake.
President Trump’s reported deal with Chairman Xi Jinping for a “reciprocal” suspension of port fees on one another’s ships is in fact anything but reciprocal. In no small part because of the substantial damage done to U.S. industry by China’s anti-competitive shipbuilding practices over the past several decades, the 188-ship fleet of U.S.-flagged oceangoing vessels now comprises a de minimis percentage, 0.30%, of the world fleet of approximately 60,000 ships over 1,000 tons, while the 93-ship fleet of U.S.-built oceangoing vessels comprise an even more miniscule percentage, 0.15%.[2] By contrast, China owns more than 10,000 ships under its national as well as foreign flags, 16.67% of the world fleet by number of ships; Chinese-built ships now comprise fully 23% of the world fleet by number of ships according to the 2025 UNCTAD Review of Maritime Transport.[3] USTR’s port fees therefore promise to impose significant cost on key elements of China’s shipping and shipbuilding industries in one of the most significant markets served by Chinese built, flagged, and owned ships. Given the paltry state of the U.S. Merchant Marine today, retaliatory Chinese port fees on U.S. vessels would have minimal impact on U.S. national interests in the maritime industry, and might even curb some of the strategically counterproductive (some would say myopically unwise) practices of U.S. shipping firms to send their vessels to Chinese shipyards for routine maintenance. It is true that a suspension of USTR’s port fees would give short term benefit to the parochial interests of America’s rump maritime sector. But given the stark disparity between the United States and China on the global maritime stage—America’s 188 ships to China’s 10,000; America’s 0.30% of the world fleet to China’s 16.67%; 0.15% of the world fleet built in U.S. shipyards to 23% built in China—the “mutual” suspension of port fees is rightly understood as an American surrender cleverly cloaked in pretended symmetry, another example of the Art of the Giveaway rather than the Art of the Deal.[4]
The most important target of the port fees is not China’s shipping sector but rather its shipbuilding industry, which is powering the alarming buildup of the People’s Liberation Army Navy into a blue water force that clearly aims to threaten the U.S. Navy in the Western Pacific and beyond. In recent years, a number of global shipping firms, particularly from Europe, have indulged the development of this foundational element of Chinese seapower in the pursuit of short-term profits, as Chinese state-backed shipyards have sought to undercut their South Korean and Japanese rivals on price. To say this is short-sighted is an understatement, as every foreign addition to the orderbooks of Chinese shipyards allows those same yards to even more steeply subsidize the rise of Chinese shipping firms, which are now the European lines’ fastest growing competitor in the global shipping market. The situation is now grave: Chinese shipyards had a 64% market share of global new construction orders at the start of 2025, marginalizing their closest shipbuilding competitors, South Korea and Japan, both close U.S. allies and indispensable partners in the bipartisan project of an American maritime revival. Notably, according to a September 2025 assessment by CSIS, demand for Chinese ships declined by half over the first two quarters of 2025 as USTR’s investigation approached its conclusion, while Korean and Japanese orderbooks remained roughly steady.[5] This would appear to indicate that USTR’s action has had an impact on global shipping firms’ calculus, though a recent rebound in Chinese orders could indicate an intent by shipping firms to avoid USTR’s port fees by redeploying their Chinese-built ships to serve other markets.
Rather than turning tail at the first whiff of grapeshot, USTR should not only stand firm but double down, expanding a winning approach. The logical next step is to pursue diplomacy with U.S. allies, particularly in Europe, to rally them to join USTR in imposing similar costs on Chinese-built, owned, and operated ships commensurate with the damage China has inflicted on U.S. and allied industry. This would both level the playing field in the global shipbuilding market that China has actively sought to distort in its favor and would compel global shipping firms to seek alternatives to ships built in Chinese shipyards. The center of gravity of this approach is Europe. Global shipping companies can redeploy their Chinese-built ships away from U.S. shores to avoid a unilateral U.S. port fee regime on Chinese-built, owned, and operated vessels but shipping companies would not be able to shirk a regime joined by Europe as well. An expanded multilateral port fee regime on Chinese built ships would advantage not only the United States but also key allies whose shipbuilding industries have lost market share to China in recent years, such as South Korea, Japan, the Netherlands, Italy, Romania, Denmark, Finland, and Estonia, among many others. Uniting the worldwide community of maritime democracies to reclaim their maritime sectors from domination by an aggressive continental competitor would be a singular diplomatic accomplishment, one of far greater weight and enduring strategic value than any short-term transaction that China might dangle.
Hunter Stires is a Senior Fellow at the Navy League’s Center for Maritime Strategy. He served as the Maritime Strategist to the 78th Secretary of the Navy, where he was recognized for his work as one of the principal architects of the Maritime Statecraft strategy. He serves as the Project Director of the U.S. Naval Institute’s Maritime Counterinsurgency Project and the Founder and CEO of The Maritime Strategy Group.
The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.
Center for Maritime Strategy
By Hunter Stires
The U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) praiseworthy action across both sides of the political transition to investigate and then impose port fees on ships built, owned, and operated by the People’s Republic of China has marked a vital initial step towards pushing back on China’s decades-long drive to dominate the global maritime transportation system, which has come at the direct expense of American workers, industry, and seapower. Indeed, USTR’s Section 301 investigation, a key part of the broader Maritime Statecraft strategy that I helped conceptualize and implement under the leadership of Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro and which has since been largely embraced by the Trump Administration, is among the first direct challenges the United States has mounted to China’s targeted maritime industrial policy.[1] That China has opposed this U.S. initiative so vociferously, imposing its own retaliatory fees on U.S. flagged and built vessels and now raising the issue to the level of head-of-state negotiations, speaks to the seriousness with which the Chinese Communist Party regards USTR’s port fees as a threat to its maritime strategy. Yet following a meeting between President Trump and Chairman Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Community summit in South Korea, USTR now proposes a one year suspension of its port fees, in exchange for China suspending its own port fees on U.S. ships. For the United States to now abandon such an impactful prospective initiative even before its implementation represents a significant strategic mistake.
President Trump’s reported deal with Chairman Xi Jinping for a “reciprocal” suspension of port fees on one another’s ships is in fact anything but reciprocal. In no small part because of the substantial damage done to U.S. industry by China’s anti-competitive shipbuilding practices over the past several decades, the 188-ship fleet of U.S.-flagged oceangoing vessels now comprises a de minimis percentage, 0.30%, of the world fleet of approximately 60,000 ships over 1,000 tons, while the 93-ship fleet of U.S.-built oceangoing vessels comprise an even more miniscule percentage, 0.15%.[2] By contrast, China owns more than 10,000 ships under its national as well as foreign flags, 16.67% of the world fleet by number of ships; Chinese-built ships now comprise fully 23% of the world fleet by number of ships according to the 2025 UNCTAD Review of Maritime Transport.[3] USTR’s port fees therefore promise to impose significant cost on key elements of China’s shipping and shipbuilding industries in one of the most significant markets served by Chinese built, flagged, and owned ships. Given the paltry state of the U.S. Merchant Marine today, retaliatory Chinese port fees on U.S. vessels would have minimal impact on U.S. national interests in the maritime industry, and might even curb some of the strategically counterproductive (some would say myopically unwise) practices of U.S. shipping firms to send their vessels to Chinese shipyards for routine maintenance. It is true that a suspension of USTR’s port fees would give short term benefit to the parochial interests of America’s rump maritime sector. But given the stark disparity between the United States and China on the global maritime stage—America’s 188 ships to China’s 10,000; America’s 0.30% of the world fleet to China’s 16.67%; 0.15% of the world fleet built in U.S. shipyards to 23% built in China—the “mutual” suspension of port fees is rightly understood as an American surrender cleverly cloaked in pretended symmetry, another example of the Art of the Giveaway rather than the Art of the Deal.[4]
The most important target of the port fees is not China’s shipping sector but rather its shipbuilding industry, which is powering the alarming buildup of the People’s Liberation Army Navy into a blue water force that clearly aims to threaten the U.S. Navy in the Western Pacific and beyond. In recent years, a number of global shipping firms, particularly from Europe, have indulged the development of this foundational element of Chinese seapower in the pursuit of short-term profits, as Chinese state-backed shipyards have sought to undercut their South Korean and Japanese rivals on price. To say this is short-sighted is an understatement, as every foreign addition to the orderbooks of Chinese shipyards allows those same yards to even more steeply subsidize the rise of Chinese shipping firms, which are now the European lines’ fastest growing competitor in the global shipping market. The situation is now grave: Chinese shipyards had a 64% market share of global new construction orders at the start of 2025, marginalizing their closest shipbuilding competitors, South Korea and Japan, both close U.S. allies and indispensable partners in the bipartisan project of an American maritime revival. Notably, according to a September 2025 assessment by CSIS, demand for Chinese ships declined by half over the first two quarters of 2025 as USTR’s investigation approached its conclusion, while Korean and Japanese orderbooks remained roughly steady.[5] This would appear to indicate that USTR’s action has had an impact on global shipping firms’ calculus, though a recent rebound in Chinese orders could indicate an intent by shipping firms to avoid USTR’s port fees by redeploying their Chinese-built ships to serve other markets.
Rather than turning tail at the first whiff of grapeshot, USTR should not only stand firm but double down, expanding a winning approach. The logical next step is to pursue diplomacy with U.S. allies, particularly in Europe, to rally them to join USTR in imposing similar costs on Chinese-built, owned, and operated ships commensurate with the damage China has inflicted on U.S. and allied industry. This would both level the playing field in the global shipbuilding market that China has actively sought to distort in its favor and would compel global shipping firms to seek alternatives to ships built in Chinese shipyards. The center of gravity of this approach is Europe. Global shipping companies can redeploy their Chinese-built ships away from U.S. shores to avoid a unilateral U.S. port fee regime on Chinese-built, owned, and operated vessels but shipping companies would not be able to shirk a regime joined by Europe as well. An expanded multilateral port fee regime on Chinese built ships would advantage not only the United States but also key allies whose shipbuilding industries have lost market share to China in recent years, such as South Korea, Japan, the Netherlands, Italy, Romania, Denmark, Finland, and Estonia, among many others. Uniting the worldwide community of maritime democracies to reclaim their maritime sectors from domination by an aggressive continental competitor would be a singular diplomatic accomplishment, one of far greater weight and enduring strategic value than any short-term transaction that China might dangle.
Hunter Stires is a Senior Fellow at the Navy League’s Center for Maritime Strategy. He served as the Maritime Strategist to the 78th Secretary of the Navy, where he was recognized for his work as one of the principal architects of the Maritime Statecraft strategy. He serves as the Project Director of the U.S. Naval Institute’s Maritime Counterinsurgency Project and the Founder and CEO of The Maritime Strategy Group.
The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.
[1] Steve Brock and Hunter Stires, “Maritime Statecraft and Its Future,” Center for International Maritime Security, October 21, 2025. https://cimsec.org/maritime-statecraft-and-its-future/
[2] U.S. Maritime Administration, U.S. Flagged Fleet – Dashboard. https://www.maritime.dot.gov/data-reports/us-flag-fleet-dashboard
[3] United Nations Conference on Trade and Development 2025 Review of Maritime Transport. https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/rmt2025_en.pdf
[4] Hunter Stires, “Don’t Give Up The Shipyards,” Defense One, October 28, 2025. https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2025/10/dont-give-shipyards/409114/
[5] Matthew P. Funaiole, Brian Hart, and Aidan Powers-Riggs, “Are U.S. Policies Eroding China’s Dominance in Shipbuilding?” CSIS, September 24, 2025. https://www.csis.org/analysis/are-us-policies-eroding-chinas-dominance-shipbuilding