Costello Warns That Port Fee Plan Could Upend Supply Chain
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PHOENIX — In addition to uncertainty around tariffs, other less-publicized issues are threatening to upend global supply chains.
Currently under review with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is a plan for fees on Chinese-built ships that enter American ports.
“Not quite a year ago, five labor unions filed a complaint with the United States Trade Representative that China was dumping cargo ships onto the open market,” American Trucking Associations Chief Economist Bob Costello said during a presentation at the Truckload Carriers Associations’ Truckload 2025 conference.
Under the proposal, he explained, Chinese logistics ocean companies would be charged between $1 million and $3 million in fees every time a ship makes a port call in the United States. Non-Chinese shipping companies using a Chinese ship would also be charged $1 million to $3 million, Costello said.
The fees would be assessed at every U.S. port where the ship stops, making it less likely that ships would stop at multiple ports along the coast, he added.
“What they’re probably going to do is dump all of the cargo in one port and move on,” Costello said, adding that the proposal, if approved, would likely compel shipping companies to skip smaller ports — especially along the East Coast.
“If this goes through, it will absolutely change freight patterns in the U.S.,” Costello said.
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The USTR is accepting public comments on the proposal, and Costello told attendees that ATA is closely tracking its progress.
Another issue on ATA’s radar is illegal freight-hauling capacity entering the U.S. market. Costello said fleets that compel Mexican B-1 drivers who are supposed to return to Mexico after making U.S. deliveries to instead remain stateside and haul domestic U.S. loads are disrupting the domestic supply chain. This practice, which he described as “cabotage,” has added capacity when it should have been falling, Costello said. He noted that ATA is working with the Department of ϳԹland Security to crack down on the activity.
