China’s Maritime Tit-for-Tat: The Trade War Moves to the Waterfront

Headlines scream trade war, but our radar shows choreography. We unpack how the U.S. Section 301 vessel fees and China’s mirrored port charges operate like a controlled conversation—clear signals with tight guardrails—while cargo keeps moving and markets recalibrate. From exemptions and caps to first-port-only assessments, we trace why this design aims at leverage, not revenue, and how carriers are already adapting without triggering a supply chain shock.

We walk through the mechanics that matter: which vessels are actually exposed, why build origin and operating control change the calculus, and how alliances quietly repositioned tonnage to avoid the sharpest edges. You’ll hear why analysts see limited immediate impact on U.S. port calls, what COSCO’s steady rotations suggest about state-managed restraint, and how selective carve-outs reveal space for diplomacy. Then we zoom out to the long game—shipyard order books tilting toward South Korea, India, and allied builders—as incentives nudge capital away from fee-heavy risk and toward diversified capacity.

If you manage logistics or compliance, this conversation is a field manual. We share a simple exposure map to build now, invoice checks to catch pass-throughs, and practical diversification moves that add flexibility without blowing up your network. We also look ahead: leadership shifts at the FMC and MARAD, data transparency pushes, and the coming leader-to-leader meeting that could turn reversible fees into negotiating chips on shipbuilding, port technology, and reciprocal access. The theme is precision over panic—policy as a scalpel, not a hammer—backed by steps you can take today.

If this lens helps you see the signal in the noise, follow and subscribe, share with your team, and leave a review. Your feedback guides what we dive into next—and keeps this community a step ahead of the next policy move.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Opening And Stakes Of New Fees
• 2:50 Course Plug And 301 Basics
• 5:50 Retaliation Or Choreography?
• 9:45 China’s Mirror Fees Explained
• 13:20 Market Signals Not Supply Shocks
• 17:30 Who Pays And How Carriers Adjust
• 22:00 Incentives Shifting Shipbuilding Orders
• 26:30 Strategic Rollout And Timing
• 30:40 Leverage Ahead Of Leader Meeting
• 34:10 What Logistics Teams Should Do Now

Transcript

Speaker: 0:00

Ready to go. You're listening to By Land and By Sea, powered by the Maritime Professor.

Lauren Beagen: 0:18

The trade war is officially seaborne within days of the USTR's new Section 301 vessel fees going into effect on ships built or operated by Chinese company. Beijing is firing back, announcing mirror image port charges, and even targeting American-linked shipbuilders with sanctions and restrictions. But look, I'm here to say I don't see this all as chaos entirely. I see it as perhaps choreography. And frankly, I see the whole thing as strategically perhaps clever by President Trump's administration. To me, it reassures and it reasserts U.S. leverage in the maritime domain while signaling to allies and competitors that the U.S. is backed at the helm of its own shipping policy. We're going to talk a lot more about it today. What I think about the whole thing. Hi, welcome back to Byland and by Sea, an attorney breaking down the weakened supply chain presented by the Maritime Professor. Me, I'm Lauren Beegan, former FMC International Affairs Attorney and founder of the Maritime Professor in Squall Strategies. By Land and By Sea is your go-to resource for navigating the regulatory side of global ocean shipping. And me, well, I'm your favorite maritime attorney. As always, this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not legal advice. This is Plain Language Maritime, so anyone, not just lawyers or industry insiders, can follow along and see what's happening in the world of shipping. So let's dive in because as you know, ocean shipping moves the world. All right. Well, before we jump into it, I want to stop for a minute before we get too deep into the headlines and let you know that look, today we're going to be unpacking the nuances and frankly some of my reactions to the latest tip-for-tap political posturing between the United States and China in the maritime sphere. It's going to be technical. It might be a little less baseline 101 than we usually talk. But as we get into today's discussion, if you find yourself thinking, wait, what exactly are these USTR Section 301 port fees? She keeps talking about, don't worry, you're not alone. That's why I built a mini course on this. It's part of my just in time learning mini course. It breaks it all down. What are these Section 301 vessel fees? Why were they created? Who they actually hit? Look, we go over it all in 30 minutes or less. Plain language, so you get the information you need when you need it. Because when you understand the rules, you make better decisions. You can take the short course before or after this episode. I mean, you're already listening, so keep with us. Either way, it'll give you the plain language foundation of how this all started and set you up for the deeper dive that we're about to take today. So find it at the MaritimeProfessor.com. Just look for just in time learning, USTR section 301 port fees. All right, now let's get into the nuance. And why this latest tip for tap may actually be a sign that the US strategy is working exactly as intended. I don't know. Let's see. I have some thoughts on this. So look, of course, headlines love the word retaliation. It sounds dramatic, it drives clicks, it makes for great talking points. But in the world of trade and maritime policy, what's happening right now, to me, isn't a free-for-all. It's a pattern. I see it as a pattern. And I always try to find the themes of the pattern. One that we've seen perhaps play out before. And it's actually a pre a fairly predictable structured exchange between the two major economies in its simplest form. I don't want to minimize that this is a very complicated thing, but I'm seeing trends. So when the United States takes a policy action like this, in this case, the US, the USTR site and 301 vessel fees, it's sending a calculated signal, right? We're willing to use maritime policy as leverage because it was never only about the port fees. This wasn't meant to be a moneymaker. This was meant to be a behavior changer, right? It it's a show of seriousness, not necessarily hostility, is how I took it. And so, of course, China was going to respond, right? Of course they were going to respond. This was probably one of the most predictable things that could have happened that China responded. It wasn't when, it was how they were going to respond. And so when China responded, I didn't see it out of anger. I kind of saw it out of necessity. Of course, Beijing had to demonstrate strength to its own domestic audience. That's part of the playbook, right? That's how geopolitics works. Matching tone and posture to show that it won't be intimidated. But what I will note is that it seemed like they didn't totally cross the line into escalation. So rather than a trade spiral spiral, excuse me, what we're seeing is a calibrated, measured response. That's what it seems like to me. A series of carefully balanced moves designed to communicate power while keeping trade lanes open. In other words, this isn't a breakdown to me. It seems like two superpowers are talking through the language of tariffs this time around. Now, according to Reuters reporting posted by G Captain, China's Newport fees largely mirror the US Section 301 structure, right? We saw similar framework, similar tone. That's not accidental. That's diplomacy through mimicry, mimicking. We talked about what these China response fees look like last week. So you can go back and check out what they actually are. But essentially it's a mirroring. When one side mirrors the other's actions so precisely, to me, it didn't feel like escalation. It felt like communication. It felt like China was actually saying, We see what you do in the US, we we can match you, but we're not shutting that door. And to me, it feels like that's how the trade politics are working here. Both sides moving the same chest pieces, and then it feels like maybe we're in that pause. Who blinks first? And this is where the nuance really matters. Despite all this talk of maritime retaliation, right? Retaliation is the word. Nothing operationally destabilizing has really happened. And I don't want to minimize that there has been a little bit, there has been, and there might be some trouble, but I wouldn't say that any sort of trouble or additional fees are destabilizing. This hasn't destabilized the supply chain. The world's largest state-backed ocean carrier, Costco Shipping, told the JOC that it had no plans to change its U.S. service rotations. And maybe they didn't tell JOC directly, but they they they made it known that Costco said they have no chance, no plans to change its U.S. service rotation, which is interesting because Costco has the largest exposure. They are Chinese operated. And Chinese operated means they can't just maneuver their Chinese built vessels out of rotation and try to cover it. Chinese operated is a category in the US Section 301 that has a higher fee rate. And they said they have no plans to change out of U.S. service rotations. To me, that was a very public way of saying we're not going to pull our ships, we're not going to be cutting our ports, we're actually just staying the course. And it also tells me that the Chinese government and its state-run carriers are managing this extremely carefully. Of course they are, but they're making sure the political optics stay tough while the commercial operations stay stable. And China quietly went a step further and exempted U.S. flag vessels built in China from its retaliatory port fees. It's part of that mirroring, right? They said, we've said that even if it's a Chinese built vessel, as long as it's owned by a U.S. company, they're exempted. China created that same carve out in their responsal fees. They said US flag vessels built in China are exempted. And it's a big deal, and it's kind of easy to miss because there's a lot going on here. But if they could have just turned away all U.S. everything, right? And they that would have been in the escalation. That exemption kind of means to me that China deliberately carved out space for diplomacy. They didn't escalate. They could have applied their fees more broadly, but they didn't. They're signaling some of that restraint, but also perhaps signaling that they're trying to impact behavior the same way that the US is. They're saying we're responding, but we're leaving this open. We're not going to be escalating. So when you look at all this together, right? The mirrored policy, the fairly calm messaging from Costco on this and the selective exemptions, like I said, it's not chaos to me. It seems like this is all control. It seems like this is a playbook move on both sides, a short-term show strength designed to create bargaining leverage, not damage global trade. And from the US side, it's evidence that the new USTR Section 301 vessel fees are being implemented with exactly the kind of restraint and predictability that reassure markets, right? And now I am not an economist, and so perhaps I'm batting outside of my realm by talking about the economy of it all. But I do understand the supply chain side, and I certainly understand the maritime side. And this all still sends a firm message that the US is serious about maritime fairness, but it's also impacting decisions, market decisions. Now, if you really want a reality check on how targeted these USTR fees are, Michael Angel over at the JOC analyzed new data from SP Global Market Intelligence. He posted this on LinkedIn this week. As of the October 14th start date, only 16 of the 85 container ships calling U.S. ports were Chinese built, he said. But 16 calling U.S. ports, 12 fell below the 4,000 TEU threshold. So we had 85 containerships calling U.S. ports on the 14th. 16 of them were Chinese built. But of those 16, 12 fell below the 4,000 TEU threshold, meaning they were exempted. They were too small to be assessed. And most of them were operated by U.S. companies in the Caribbean or short-term trades that are already exempt. So Costco and OCL each have a couple of post-PanMAC ships in the mix, but both carriers have said they don't plan to pass the fees through to customers. Now, this is a I want to kind of pause because the way that I read it is mostly that way where Costco and OCL have said they don't plan to pass the fees through as a surcharge. Now, I don't know if that means exactly that they're not going to be passing it through as a direct pass-through charge, or if they're just saying we're not going to be doing a blanket surcharge, as many of the other ocean carriers have said, they don't plan to do a blanket surcharge to cover these fees. I'm expecting that they'll probably come through as direct pass-through fees, but arguably that's what Cascona OCL is saying here is that they don't plan to pass through the fees through surcharges. I don't know. We're going to see. We we're two days, three days past the start date of these fees. So here we are. We're going to see what they start looking like if they show up on invoices. But look, that's hopefully the message really is that they don't plan to pass through the fees to the customers at all. So while the headlines are still screaming new tariff, the actual operational impact is minimal, is what we're seeing, right? This is a high precision, it feels like high precision, low volume policy aimed at strategic signaling, perhaps not disruption. And now I know that I don't usually go into the judgment-based side of things, and I really don't think that I'm going too far into the judgment-based side of things. I'm just trying to illuminate some of these patterns that I'm seeing, right? And it feels like it was probably a calculated thing, and it seems to be proving to be pretty effective. It's demonstrating resolve without risking volatility at US ports, right? They're both kind of signaling, right? US and China are both signaling, but trade keeps flowing and it feels measured. So if you caught last week's episode, you'll remember we walked through the details of this China retaliatory port fees, these mirror port fees, as a direct response to U.S. Section 301. What we talked about is that Beijing was rolling out its special port fees on U.S. linked ships, is what it was, the U.S. linked ships, starting October 14th. It's a one-for-one, ten-for-ton response, meant to show parity, not escalation, is what I saw. China now charges 401 per net ton, or about 56 bucks per voyage, applied only at the first Chinese port of call, similar to the US application. And each vessel is capped at five assessed voyages per year, just like the USTR Section 301s. And just like the US system, the rates escalate annually to roughly $90 in 2026, $120 in 2027, and $157 in 2028. If that sounds familiar, it should. It's mirror image policy of the US Section 301 vessel fees, down to the cap, the timing, the escalation schedule. Like I said, this I see this as China's message of clear of we can match your maritime economic pressure ton for ton, but we're not going to escalate. Right? They didn't escalate. They're symbolic leverage tools, a diplomatic echo of U.S. policy meant to show strength while preserving stability. And the markets noticed, sure, but there was also some market-driven decisions that happened from these announcements. One of the first was that we heard from Gemini Cooperation, the new strategic partnership between Marisk and Hopag Lloyd. Remember, this is the Hobb and Spoke model. This is the one where they talked about very high reliability. According to JOC, Gemini repositioned certain vessels away from Chinese ports almost immediately after the fees took effect. Now, with the USDR Section 301, they had six months to plan. With these special port fees, the China announced they had about a week. So it was, it had to be faster, right? And the faster you go, perhaps the more disruptive it can be to the markets. But the markets were already making adjustments and repositioning fleets. And we're seeing that with many, many, many of the ocean carriers repositioning their fleets over the summer, right? Across the container sector, carriers were mapping vessel ownership, build origin, and operational control with a level of precision that we really haven't seen before. So now, what does that mean for you? What does that mean for you as just somebody that's part of the ocean shipping world? You also have to do a little bit of assessment on what container, what vessel your containers are moving on. So ask, and this is not legal advice, but this is general education on what I see going on here. Who owns this vessel? Right? You probably know, but is it a vessel operating comma carrier? Is it a non-vessel operating comma carrier? Who actually owns and is operating the vessel that your container is on? And where was that vessel built? If it was built in China, then maybe expect to be watching your invoices a little closer to see if you get a surcharge that comes through or a pass-through charge that comes through of these USTR Section 301 fees or not. But at least you'll know was your container on a Chinese built or non-Chinese built vessel and who's operating it. Those are the those are the questions that I think you should be asking. And for a little bit, you're gonna have to get that's pretty detail-oriented. That's pretty in the weeds. Your shipping documents probably have that information somewhere in it. But look, we might also be seeing freight quietly shifting towards some of these ocean carriers that aren't Chinese operated, right? Perhaps moving away from Costco's and moving toward the Maersks and the MSCs and the CMAs and the Hopigloids and the OEs and everybody else. Carriers that offer perhaps more US friendly, or should I say, non-Chinese built or non-Chinese operated vessels without triggering either side's fee structure. Now it kind of almost feels a little, and this is stay with me here, the incentive principle, right? The FMC worked on this incentive principle in the 2020 demerge and detention interpretive rule. And basically what they were trying to say is you don't need punishment to change behavior, you just need incentives, and the market corrects itself. And that's kind of what we're seeing here, right? The US Tariff Section 301 fees created a cost incentive that rewarded transparency. And I say incentive because you're trying to avoid the fee. So arguably it could maybe even be still a penalty, but it's incentivizing movement toward one way by avoidance of a fee elsewhere. And we're seeing that happen in not just the who people are shipping their goods with, but we're also seeing it in some of these order books. We've talked about this before. These ocean carriers are now looking at the contracts that they have for new builds, and the the proof is in the pudding. The reports are coming out that South Korea is seeing an increase in orders. I was even seeing this week increases in Indian shipyards, and I'm sure European shipyards are out there too, where now non-Chinese shipyards are seeing increases in order books of vessels. Because if these fees are here to stay, now it's a long game, right? Because you would have to kind of bet that these fees are here to stay, or at least this incentivization of away from Chinese bill is here to stay. But it's it's rebalancing the market for shipbuilding generally, right? So what looks like a trade spat from all these headlines feels like market discipline taking shape and decisions being made based on avoidance of fees and longer-term decision making, and perhaps a bolstering of, I mean, we're seeing injections of cash like we've never seen before coming from Hanwa into the Philly shipyard and just generally order books of investment infrastructure into shipbuilding, into maritime, generally, in either the US or our friends out there. So I'm seeing all of this as market discipline taking shape toward this strategic recalibration that is benefiting the US position here. It's not a one-off tariff, it's a chapter in this deliberate U.S. industrial policy reboot. For decades, maritime issues were really treated as peripheral in Washington and elsewhere, right? We all know that. We all know that. As members of the maritime community here, we all know we were always overshadowed by air, rail, and trucking when it came to infrastructure priorities. But I feel like, look, under this administration, maritime leverage is recognized as a strategic power. As soon as this administration came in and they pulled Mike Waltz for national security advisor, he had just been working on the SHIPS Act, which was previously called the Kelly Waltz bill. Mike Waltz was working very hard on maritime issues. And so when he went into the national security advisor position, I said, maritime security is national security now. This is the best so sign of that. And shortly after, we had all of these executive orders and kind of movement toward using maritime leverage as a strategic power. So we're watching it unfold. The US-China trade dispute now spans multiple fronts. We're seeing it on shipbuilding, certainly, but also poor infrastructure and technology. These aren't random and these aren't new. These are things that we've kind of watched unfold over the past few months. And remember, this USTR Section 301 started under the Biden administration. So it's not entirely Trump that was seeing this need to rebalance maritime shipbuilding, but just the maritime industry in general. But it is the Trump administration that's been using it as leverage in trade negotiations. We're seeing this intent specifically for rebuilding U.S. and Allied shipyards capacity, right? Building ships. We're seeing it in the modernizing of ports through Merit programs and private investments. And we will probably continue to see that because as the trade money comes in, I expect to be helping to bolster the maritime modernization. And we're also seeing a use of trade policy to balance maritime influence that's been one-sided for quite a long time. This is the United States asserting leadership through competence. And the administration, it seems like, is using these targeted measures rather than blunt force bans to restore that balance or attempt to restore that balance in the maritime system. It feels like strategic modernization. And look, this didn't happen overnight, and it still won't happen overnight. It's been a slow build. And that was something that we kind of talked about over the summer, too, that it felt like this was taking a little bit too long. It felt like things were stalling out over the summer. We didn't hear much. There was some reshuffling of staff, drafts of ideas of implementation for perhaps different categories of the executive order on maritime dominance were being floated. But now looking back, you can almost see the methodology behind the pacing, right? We had to give time to major ocean carriers to reposition their fleets for the USTR Section 301 port fees proposals so that they could reposition those vessels, limit their fee exposure to prepare for what was coming. And during that time, I'll note China didn't introduce those mirror fees. So there wasn't a reason not to reposition their vessels. Had China perhaps acted faster, it would have been more chaotic, but it didn't. And it was showing that the change behavior through the market decisions approach kind of worked here. If this policy decision had been rushed, we probably would have seen a market shock and confusion. But instead, we're seeing a measured rollout, is what it feels like. Here we are. It's about six months past the announcement, uh, almost six months, because that was an April 9th order. And we have November 5th is when we're expecting the app the maritime action plan. We needed this maritime, this measured rollout to allow the global system to adapt so that when the fees took effect this week in October, the response was calm, orderly, and meaningful. I mean, you have to admit that kind of seems like it was all by design. And perhaps that stall was a purposeful stall. And maybe I'm giving you too much credit to the whole thing. But maybe it was a purposeful stall. I've said it from kind of when we restarted the season this fall. Look, by dropping the proposal, getting everybody engaged, revising the proposal, right? The first time USTR even mentioned these things, it was a million dollars per Voyage, and that was it. And it felt like, whoa, that's going to cause chaos. And then they revised it. And then they let the private sector breeze. And they gave a six-month window to adapt. It felt like maximum market impact with minimal disruption. Right? It felt like it was allowing the market decisions and the data to catch up with the diplomacy. And now months later, we're seeing that vessel orders are shifting toward Allied yards. We're seeing fleet diversification, we're seeing repositioning of vessels, carriers rebalancing service networks. So that when people are asking whether these vessel fees are working, like they've only been in effect for three days. But the answer was before even October 14th, yes. Because everybody was making decisions around them. It was impacting the behavior as they were really designed to do. It was a long game, right? And that's a game that China plays too. So this was a long game over what, six months? But this was a game that was carefully sequenced with market-informed maritime strategy, seeming to be restoring that balance and American presence, one measured move at a time. So President Trump has already announced that he's going to be probably meeting with President Xi in the next few weeks, or that he will be meeting with President Xi in the next few weeks. This is something that I said last week. And again, not legal advice directly related to your matter, but I think this is gonna get a little chaotic for the next few weeks until this meeting happens. But I also am very hopeful that perhaps this chaos, this tit for tat, this retaliatory measures is heating things up and moving us toward a trade deal between the US and China. The Section 301s only went live a few days ago. Like I said, I think that we're gonna be heating up perhaps before the meeting of the two leaders. But I also see this as the US walking into that dialogue with leverage. They were able to impact market decisions. They were able to impact the behavior of categories within the maritime sector. And both sides can claim strength here, right? The U.S. acted decisively to correct market distortion in shipbuilding and maritime services, and China responded proportionally, the mirror, while keeping trade open. And that's the definition of controlled escalation with an exit ramp. If I'll durable agreements seem to start because Section 301 tools are reversible, they double as negotiating chips. If China offers concession on maritime-related issues, the U.S. could reduce the fees while claiming still a policy win. And the vessels have been maneuvered, and they probably won't be maneuvered out because why would they? It seems to work just fine. It reasserts maritime influence, strengthens maritime bargaining position. It feels like this was all planned. So for industry, what is the message here? To me, it's gonna feel a little chaotic, but to me, the system is working. I think the plan is unfolding how it was designed to unfold. Trade lanes are opening or continue to stay open. Carriers are sailing, cargo is moving. There's not a lot of messaging of big surcharges coming in. It feels like the U.S. is demonstrating the maritime policy can be used as a precision instrument because there's no sign of chaos or or not a large sign of chaos in the ports. There doesn't seem to be surging or dropping out of rates. There doesn't seem to be a lot of panic in the markets. Instead, it feels kind of calm and choreographed, right? I said it wasn't chaotic, it was choreographed. So what do you do if you're in logistics and compliance? Run the numbers, audit your exposure, figure out what vessels your goods are shipping on, take a look at surcharge clause in all invoices that you receive. See if you are getting any pass-through charges. Make sure that things are still operating the way that they should. And maybe ask questions. Where are your vessels built if you're working with carriers? Or if you are a carrier, make sure that you know, and I'm sure this has been happening, where your vessels are built. What's the vessel structure of your fleet? Do you have non-Chinese vessels that can still be moved around? And then if you are a shipper, find out who's actually operating these vessels. That's just knowing what's going on. That's that's strategic literacy that's that's successfully planning for what's next. And by understanding some of these nuances in the maritime industry and the ocean shipping world, you will be better situated on making decisions strategically on how to ship your goods and limit your exposure to potentially surcharges. It's also an opportunity to diversify routing options while conditions are perhaps calm, we'll say for the most part. Maybe I said this during some of the labor negotiations. I said that maybe diversifying ports of entry or diversifying routes was a good idea then. It continues to probably be a good idea, not specific to your matter. This isn't legal advice, this isn't business advice that you should be taking specifically, but something for you to consider. Diversifying your suppliers, diversify your routing options. Maybe there's something that you could also add so that if something, if you do have exposure on one trade route, because remember, ocean carriers move on dedicated trade lanes. So if you know what vessel is on that dedicated trade lane, perhaps you can help you eliminate or certainly reduce your available exposure to some of these fees, right? I think maritime infrastructure is going to continue to be a field of national priority. I think that what we are going to see next week, the FMC nominees, Laura DeBella and Bob Harvey, are up for maritime, up for their hearing over at the Senate. We also see the Maritime Administrator, the Department of Transportation nominee, Steve Carmel. He is also up for his hearing. It's moving forward, right? I think that we're seeing maritime leverage on the large global stage. We're seeing the pieces start to fall into place within the federal agencies. I think that we have a really good start here. And to be honest, it is refreshing to see any administration put maritime affairs front and center. Because as we all know, you can't get your goods. 90% of everything moves by ocean shipping. And you can't get your goods into the country if you don't have the ports and you don't have the people and you don't have the ships. And you have to have that cargo, right? It's not just an infrastructure issue, it's a tool. Because at the end of the day, this isn't about the tariffs or the tonnage. It's about confidence, the confidence that hopefully America can set a tone in global shipping. I think that we're getting there. My advice, non legal, is to stay calm, is to make sure that you understand where your goods are moving, make sure that you understand how it all works. Because I think that we're going to continue to see this. So, what am I watching next? The story is not done, that's for sure. What happens over the next few weeks, I think, could define the tone of US-China maritime relations and certainly maybe US-China maritime, US-China relations generally. We're watching for this Trump Xi meeting. President Trump and President Xi have said that they're going to be meeting in the next few weeks. Uh, this is gonna be the first test of where we are. Is this going to be an actual we had a chat, it was great, or is this going to be a here's some things that we're working on reciprocity, transparency, industrial capacity? I'm gonna be listening for things like that. I'm also gonna be listening for potentially shipbuilding investment and different ways of maneuvering that I think will get us closer to a broader train trade framework. Will those special port fees start to fall off by China? And also I'm gonna see China's enforcement of those special port fees. They don't have to, and we haven't seen them, right? We're still waiting on both sides. How are they going to be applied? Who's paying for them specifically? But that's a big question on the China special port fees. They could quietly pause enforcement to cool tensions if they wanted, or they could selectively tighten it as negotiations unfold. That's kind of the benefit of having these special port fees, is that they can maneuver them for leverage. So if the enforcement stays restrained, it suggests Beijing, it's still seeing value and keeping the shipping lanes calm and the conversation open. We're gonna continue to see the carrier behavior responding to it. I think we're also gonna be seeing, like I said, the shippers responding to it. Are you going to be making decisions on whether whether you're gonna ship with Costco or whether you're gonna ship with somebody else, knowing that Costco is an ocean carrier, a Chinese-operated ocean carrier. But on the other hand, if you have a lot of exposure to Chinese ports, maybe you'll make decisions based on that. I also think I'm gonna keep continue to keep an eye on shipyard order books, specifically out of South Korea. We'll continue to watch that, but it was really interesting to see an uh increase in reporting of India and order books coming out of India. Let's see if this momentum continues, right? Our new order is gonna be shifting away from these Chinese yards into Allied facilities, one day into perhaps the US facilities. I'm also gonna continue to see what's happening with domestic follow-through, right? We're gonna have our people in their positions, right? So Department of Transportation through MARAD and the Federal Maritime Commission hopefully will be up to full power. Both have opportunities to translate this momentum into policy infrastructure. Mayrad could expand organization and training initiatives, and the FMC could use this moment to refine competitive fairness frameworks or data transparency programs, right? So perhaps it won't just always be reacting to China, but they might be institutionalizing some of this maritime strength for the long term, and hopefully in a as they are meant to, or at least the FMC, in a fairness way. Perhaps MARED will be continuing to pursue and promote the US flag side of things, the U.S. maritime infrastructure. But on the FMC side, we're gonna be seeing their move toward fairness and reliability and the throughput and the efficient movement of goods and cargo for the benefit of the U.S. importer, exporter, and consumer. Because that's their mission too. I'm gonna keep looking at all of this, right? I want to see how it all connects trade, national security, industrial innovation. This is all unfolding very quickly. I didn't want to go too far into any of the specifics because it could change at a moment's notice. I think that we will continue to see things change over the next few days, the next few weeks. It feels like the US might have done a few things well here. And I said that kind of throughout this monologue, I guess, but we'll see. We'll see where it all goes. I think that it's still, there are a lot of things at play. But to me, looking back at some of the things that I've been reporting on and reacting to over the past few months and certainly into the spring, doesn't it feel like things are kind of falling together? They're kind of it it kind of made sense. Now, I don't want to, I don't want to give too much credence here because who knows, right? We're we're still kind of seeing all of this play out. And I'm certainly not even talking about the tariff side of things. I'm only talking about the maritime side, I'm talking about the portface here. But it worked. It certainly worked to change behaviors. So I'm encouraged. I'm staying positive. I'm I'm really encouraged by seeing the behavior shift. And now we're getting into perhaps the the apex of our relationship with China for maritime issues, and maybe we'll have a trade deal in the next few weeks. I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful. Look, keep it here, keep watching, keep listening, and uh we'll get back to the the Captain's Lock news next week. But I wanted to kind of have a reactionary episode. So if you like this episode, be sure to follow, subscribe, and leave a review. Want to go deeper on these topics or bring this kind of insight to your team, visit the maritimeprofessor.com to explore corporate trainings, tailored briefings, and on-demand webinars, all designed to make complex maritime regulations practical and easy to understand. If your organization needs help navigating the legal or strategic side of ocean shipping regulations, head over to Squall Strategies. That's where I provide consulting services, regulatory guidance, and policy support. Also, this year we are so proud to say that we are an official partner of Manifest, the future of supply chain and logistics. So Manifest Vegas, it's February 9th through 11th, is the largest global supply chain and logistics tech event in the world, bringing together global supply chain executives, logistics service providers, cutting-edge startups, venture investors, and technology leaders. You can join 6,000 of your closest friends and other supply chain innovators to foster new strategies and relationships. Listeners of my show actually get to save an additional $200 off whatever the current price is. So go to manifestvegas.com slash maritimeprofessor. Now look, as always, this podcast is for educational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice. You need an attorney, contact an attorney. Today, like I said, was a little bit different. We walked through some of the, I guess, the spider web of how I see things playing out. But this is just a snapshot perception. This is just non-judgment based, but me trying to tie it all together. I hope that you enjoyed it. But like I said, we're gonna get back to issue-based reaction and perhaps some more education on how things are rolling out. But I thought that it was important to spend a little bit of time trying to show you where my brain was going on how things are maneuvering and how I think that they might continue to play out. Because this is just my read of what's going on. Continue to read those trade presses out there, continue to stay informed, continue to stay engaged and educated on all things ocean shipping, because the better that you know the industry, the better that you know the rules, the better decisions you make. So look, until next time, I'm Lauren Began, the Maritime Professor, and you've just listened to my land and by seeing. See you next time.