According to CMA CGM, there will be no avoiding the impacts if the Trump administration goes through with its proposal to impose fees on China-built and -operated ships docking at U.S. ports.
“China builds more than half of all container ships in the world, so this would have a significant effect on all shipping firms,” chief financial officer Ramon Fernandez told reporters early Monday.
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Ocean carriers like CMA CGM, Maersk, Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) and China’s Cosco Shipping could all see fees of up to $1.5 million per port stop if the administration goes through with the impositions.
CMA CGM’s own fleet would feel the impacts of those fees, if implemented. Forty-one percent of its active fleet is built in China, according to Xeneta, while an even higher percentage of its orderbook (53 percent) is or will be built there.
Currently, U.S.-based subsidiary American President Lines (APL) has 10 U.S.-flagged vessels, Fernandez said.
The U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) office set up the proposal after determining that China’s dominance of the maritime, logistics and shipbuilding practices were “unreasonable” and disadvantaging the U.S. economy. Since President Donald Trump’s first administration, the U.S. has responded to several Chinese Section 301 trade violations by China by hitting them with a series of import tariffs.”
When asked about the updated Ocean Alliance, the vessel-sharing agreement involving CMA CGM and Asian partners Cosco, subsidiary Orient Overseas Container Line and Taiwan-based Evergreen, Fernandez said there are no indications the alliance could be called into question in view of U.S. policy.
The “Day 9” service officially launches in April 2025, and intends to deploy around 390 container vessels with an estimated total nominal capacity of nearly 5 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) across 41 weekly service loops and more than 520 direct port pairs.
For the fourth quarter, CMA CGM saw revenue jump 38.8 percent to $14.7 billion on net income of $1.5 billion. Revenue far accelerated the amount of volume carried by the logistics giant as freight rates remained elevated from the year prior, with total TEUs jumping 7.8 percent from the prior fourth quarter to 5.93 million.
Fernandez said in the briefing that a rush to beat the tariffs levied by the Trump administration led to the strong shipping volumes.