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BIMCO has said that the trade war between the US and China would exert negative impact on globalization and international shipping.
According to BIMCO, 85.3% of Chinese seaborne imports from the US and 58.5% of US seaborne imports from China could become affected by the trade war, if the US and China implement tariffs on a further USD 200 and USD 60 billion worth of goods respectively. This is equal to the impact on the container shipping industry which also sees 1.9% of total containerized seaborne trade affected.
For the first time in this trade war, the latest round has seen China unable to respond equally to the USD 200 billion measures announced by the US. With China importing much less than it exports to the US, if the trade war continues to unfold, China will have to look away from tariffing imports to find its retaliatory measures.''
While containerized goods have already been targeted, by the USD 50 billion round, the biggest impact on these will come if the proposed USD 200 billion are implemented. So far, the tariffed goods total to 6.6 million tons of seaborne trade from China to the US in 2017.This is equivalent to 660,000 TEU (10 tons per TEU/global average), which amounts to 5.9% of US West Coast container imports in 2017. If you assume a lighter/heavier cargo per transported TEU or FEU, naturally the number of containers change accordingly, said BIMCO.
A further 22.4 million tons of seaborne containerized goods would be impacted by the US 200 billion list, which amounts to a further 20.1% of USWC imports in 2017, or 2.24 million TEU. In total, if this latest round of tariffs were also to be implemented, 1.5% of the global seaborne container trade would be affected, BIMCO added.
