“We’re also looking at investing in shipbuilding of container vessels. We would also like to increase our U.S. flag vessels from 10 to 30 ships,” he said.
Well, they’re not going to build them. They’ll just reflag old POS. And then there’s nobody to work on them.
But it sure sounds good.
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If they pay enough there will be plenty of people to work on them for sure.
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What’s that number have to be?
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Any gain in US flagged ships is a help for American seafarers. More jobs equals more demand, which ultimately means increased wages.
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For which rating? CM? Pay me more than MARAD does, which I think FOS right now is something crazy like $1200 a day with OT.
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I think if they can offer more than a crust of bread, minimum wage and a free baseball cap, they’ll empty Schuyler Lines’ crew roster. It doesn’t take much to beat jack squat.
Especially more jobs from one of the higher paying companies (APL).
APL is in that ballpark for wages plus 25% MPB (MEBA contract, not sure about MMP).
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Not necessarily. They just flagged in 7 newly built ships over the past 18 months or so.
The article says they want to flag in an additional 20 ships, who knows what the mix (old/new) will be.
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What about the MSP? Is there a plan to fund additional slots?
APL bumped thier MPB to 49.78% recently (MEBA). Pretty good paying ships these days.
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I presume this will NOT be any of their nwbuilds from Chinese yards:
https://www.tradewindsnews.com/containers/french-container-line-cma-cgm-inks-2-6bn-order-in-china-despite-trump-fees/2-1-1787405
Yeah this is interesting as all 7 of their newly US flagged ships were built in china. I suppose their fleet is big enough that that can just swap them for some Korean built tonnage if these proposed fees become a reality.
Will building ships for APL at US yards help when:
PS> APL is part of CMA CGM Group, which has Chinese built ships in it’s fleet and is part of Ocean Alliance: https://www.cma-cgm.com/local/norway/news/131/cma-cgm-cosco-shipping-evergreen-and-oocl-to-extend-ocean-alliance-until-2032
Container lines will just add a surcharge that’s double the amount of the port fees to container rates.
If the total cost of shipping a container to the US is X, after stevedoring fees and fat paychecks to longshoremen it becomes 2X.
Adding a port fee surcharge won’t add much to the total cost of having a container delivered from Asia to your US doorstep.
Government revenues have to come from somewhere. I’d rather have higher port fees than higher income tax.
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The additional port fees doesn’t only apply to container ships as far as i can understand this rather messy move.
If I’m right that means just about any ship calling on a US port will be affected(??).
Most major shipping company, incl. US owned ones, have Chinese built ships in their fleet, or on order, or have some sort of affiliation with China.
That is how the shipping world has functioned until these last days of insanity.
As we have already seen, there is a big difference between the half-baked plans that are announced, and what actually happens later.
China is a strategic competitor and they intend to take Taiwan, all of the South China Sea, and economically dominate the rest of the Third World. China is supporting Putin in his war in Europe.
I would favor an out right ban on all Chinese owned, built, flagged, financed , and insured ships and aircraft, entering any US port, until after Ukraine is restored to its original borders, Taiwan’s independence is assured, and China withdraws from the Spratley’s.
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Then you better start stockpiling gasoline. Like a shitload of it.
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So is USA by the look of it, or at least WAS until yesterday, when Trump threatened more sanction on Russia, after having withdrawn aid and intelligence support to Ukraine, allowing Russia to perform more air attack on Ukrainian cities, killing more civilians. 
Are you sure you REALLY wish that? Maybe you should have a closer look at the reality of world shipping before making such wishes.
Yes there are ships owned, built and flagged outside China, but a lot is also needed to transport goods between countries that is more accommodating to international shipping. Why send your ship to a port in the US, where there may be a new hostile condition at any time? Who know what whim take your Supreme Leader next?
PS> Even assuming the very best performance, US shipyards will not be able to deliver enough US-built to carry even 10% of US import and export before 2035.
Forget about building ships ala WWII, where are the machinery and equipment necessary to build modern ships going to come from?
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