By David Lawder
Washington (Reuters) -Uus, Jamieson Greer’s trade representative, told legislators on Tuesday that all the several million dollars costs offered by the Chinese -built ships agency to dock American ports will not be implemented, and they may not be cumulative.
Greer told an audience of the Senate finance committee that the proposals had been made to deal with a lack of shipbuilding in the United States.
He said the shipping costs were “proposed actions or a series of potential income” which could be used to encourage shipbuilding in the United States following an USTR survey on the growing domination of China on the seas.
“They will not all be implemented. They will not all be stacked,” said Greer.
Dozens of shipping stakeholders have submitted public comments on the plan. Greer said he had personally encountered a number of them.
The USTR studies these comments, as well as testimonies during public hearings at the end of March, very carefully, he said.
The agency wishes to “ensure that we have the right time, good incentives, to bring shipping here without having an impact on our economy,” said Greer, who has not provided additional details on the remedies offered.
The implementation of the USTR port of port expense could arrive as late as November following comments, three sources who followed the issue, which refused to be identified, told Reuters, told Reuters.
The American stews and the industry unions praised the proposal, but were in inferiority by the opponents.
During hearings, farmers, energy producers, chemical and construction companies and operators of domestic ships have testified that the plan sadly with costs that could put them out of activity.
At the same time, national port operators have warned that the fees could arouse chaos of the supply chain which recalls the first days of the Pandemic COVID-19.
Maritime experts and lawyers have said that the language of the USTR’s proposal published in February is vague.
Among other things, they have said that fees – which apply to Chinese operators, fleets with ships built in China and operators with potential orders for China manufacturing ships – could be cumulative and that in some cases could reach $ 3.5 million per port call.
Greer’s statements responded to the Republican Senator Bill Cassidy in Louisiana, who expressed his concern that fees can affect the shipping of basic products in and outside the Louisiana and the Mississippi River System.
In particular, Cassidy said he was told that if a South Korean company had only five ships built in China in its 50 fleet, the 50 ships would be subject to the expense.
(Report by David Lawder, additional report and writing by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles; edition by Mark Porter, Joe Bavier and Nia Williams)
