Beijing (AFP) – China said Monday it would suspend for one year “special port fees” on US vessels “simultaneously” with Washington’s pause on levies targeting Chinese ships, as a fragile trade truce between the superpowers continues to take shape. The United States and China have been involved in a volatile trade and tariff war for months, but agreed to walk back some punitive measures after presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump met last month in South Korea.
At one point, duties on both sides had reached prohibitive triple-digit levels, hampering trade between the world’s two largest economies and snarling global supply chains. The suspension of the port fees, which applied to ships operated by or built in the United States that visited Chinese ports, began at 13:01 (0501 GMT) on Monday, a transport ministry statement said. The US shipbuilding industry was dominant after World War II but has gradually declined and now accounts for just 0.1 percent of global output. The sector is now dominated by Asia, with China building nearly half of all ships launched, ahead of South Korea and Japan.
Separately, Beijing said it would suspend sanctions against US subsidiaries of Hanwha Ocean, one of South Korea’s largest shipbuilders. The year-long suspension of measures against Hanwha, effective from November 10, was linked to the US halting port fees it had levied on Chinese-built and operated ships, China’s commerce ministry said in an online statement. “In light of this (US suspension)…China has decided to suspend the relevant measures” for one year, it said.
China had imposed sanctions on five US subsidiaries of Hanwha in October, accusing them of supporting a US government “Section 301” investigation that found Beijing’s dominance of the shipbuilding industry unreasonable. Organisations and individuals in China had been banned from cooperating with Hanwha Shipping LLC, Hanwha Philly Shipyard Inc., Hanwha Ocean USA International LLC, Hanwha Shipping Holdings LLC and HS USA Holdings Corp. A planned probe into whether the Section 301 investigation impacted the “security and development interests” of China’s shipbuilding industry and supply chain had also been shelved for one year, according to the transport ministry.
In another apparent move Monday to implement recent agreements, China’s commerce ministry said it had added more than a dozen fentanyl precursors to a list of controlled exports to the United States, Mexico and Canada. Washington has long accused Beijing of failing to effectively crack down on flows of the deadly chemicals underpinning a devastating drug crisis in the United States. While the Chinese statement did not mention recent negotiations, the White House said on November 1 that Beijing had agreed to “stop the shipment of certain designated chemicals to North America” — part of “significant measures to end the flow of fentanyl”.
The measures are the latest sign of a thaw in economic ties since the Xi-Trump meeting. On Wednesday, China said it would extend the suspension of additional tariffs on US goods for one year, keeping them at 10 percent, and suspend some tariffs on soybeans and other US agricultural products. China also suspended an export ban on gallium, germanium and antimony, metals crucial for modern technology, on Sunday. Also following talks, Beijing agreed to halt for one year restrictions on the export of rare earths technology. Washington in turn agreed to suspend for one year export restrictions on affiliates of blacklisted foreign companies in which they had at least a 50 percent stake, the Chinese commerce ministry said Wednesday.
© 2024 AFP
