The niche line of a container ocean carrier warns the fines that the US government is considering hitting Chinese freight vessels, would force it to leave the United States and throw away the global from the chain of Zbiasze Zbiadze Zbiadze, potentially fueling the frequency rates that are not visible since Covid.
“It strikes American exporters and importers worse than anyone else,” said Andrew Abbott, CEO ACL. “If this happens, we are out of interest and we will have to close ourselves.”
The United States sales representative took its second day of interrogations this week on the fines, which will be charged on the basis of Section 301 of the US commercial law on Wednesday, with over 300 trade groups and other interested parties warning the government in lists of comments and testimonies that there are the United States No position to win the economic war This places ocean carriers using Chinese vessels in the middle. Soon Chinese ships will represent 98% of commercial ships in the world.
The policy proposal began under the Biden administration and ended in the January report The Chinese shipbuilding industry had an unfair advantageIt would allow the US government to impose steep fees on Chinese ships coming to American ports. In the case of Chinese operators (such as COSCo), you can charge a fee for each ship for each ship for $ 1 million. In the case of non-Chinese ocean carriers with a fleet containing ships built by Chinese Chinese service fee would be up to $ 1.5 million for each port in the USA.
In the message of ACL comment For Ustr, Abbott made economic difficulties to which his company would meet, saying that if the US government would move on with the bangs, “would make us completely uncompetitive compared to other carriers in American transactions.”
ACL, which is the oldest constantly operating container line in the world and is the property of the Grimaldi Group of Welges, is the only operator of a combination of containers-built ships between North America and North Europe.
If the ACL abandoned the American market, domestic producers would lose the only carrier from the North Atlantic in the USA and the main North Atlantic carrier in large and the project of load to Europe. ACL supports vehicles, construction equipment, aircraft, including Airbus and Project Cargo wings, including more than half of American construction equipment, agricultural equipment and large machines moving from the ports of New York, Baltimore and Norfolk to Europe.
“All Airbus wings are produced here in the USA and we wear them to Great Britain,” said Abbott CNBC. “If we disappear, you'll have to find another brake volume ship.”
Abbott explained to CNBC that his company's situation is unique and the largest ocean carriers will be able to better alleviate the influence of potential fines. “Finally, I will find a customer with a fee of $ 2,000 and USD 2,500, in which large guys can only have USD 800, so in today's world it is a huge amount of money, and we could potentially get us out of the business. So we would be forced to pull our ships out of Atlantic, from American transactions and probably put them in Asia, do it.”
The purpose of the policy proposal is to revive the national shipbuilding industry in the US, but many commentators argued that these fines are the wrong way to achieve this goal. Abbott said he had just published the situation of his company. “Chinese operators, with whom they try to play because of the way they support their ships, and the number of ports they call will probably be one of the new configuration least affected by this. So the guys you want to get out of the Scots, and the guys who were in your country were nailed,” said Abbott.
The closing of American offices ACL would affect 300 employees in addition to the supply chain pipeline, which supports them, such as truck drivers and warehouse employees.
President Trump said in his last speech to Congress that his administration would create a special office dedicated to the construction of a ship and offer tax incentives for domestic production.
Abbott claims that the current reality in the American shipbuilding industry is one of the forces leaving ACL depending on China. “The only reason I use the Chinese is that when we went to the American yard, they told me that they could not build a ship for seven years. The shipyards with whom we talked were reserved with the army. They had no room for the construction of a commercial ship. If you get $ 2.5 billion for the destroyer, why will you be messing up with $ 75 million?
Abbott said that the threat of closing in the US as a result of fees appears when the trade route increased due to changes in trade policy.
After 2024, which said that Abbott was the smallest year of size since 1967, since January exports in the USA ACL increased by 50%. “It's all burdensome at the front. It's all fear that you won't be able to get your things and introduce retaliation tariffs,” he said. “
The main ocean carriers plan to work around a fine if the US government introduces them with significant consequences for some American ports.
Soren Toft, general director of the world's largest ocean carrier, MSC, said CNBC at the last TPM conference at Long Beach, California that you can eliminate at least one port, Oakland port, with containers redirected to alternative ports such as Los Angeles and Long Beach.
Abbott said that the redirection of imports or exports related to the USA ACL to Canadian or Mexican ports does not have economic sense, because “inland transport costs are excessive.”
He also warned that the cancellation of ports would cause overload in ports where containers are directed, which causes artificial crunch in the availability of containers, as a result of which he becomes higher.
“The rate from the time of Covid increases,” said Abbott. “Everything he does is postpone many American business exporters. They will not be able to compete with the rest of the world.”
Watch a full video interview with Abbott below.
