China will suspend port fees for ships with connections to the United States for a year. This was announced by China's Ministry of Transport on Monday, according to the news agency Reuters.
The suspension of the fees will take effect at 06:01 Danish time. China began collecting the special port fees on American ships in October. This applied to ships that have a US owner, are operated by the US, are built in the US, or sail under the US flag.
Failure to pay the fees would result in the ship's imports and exports being suspended.
The port fees were introduced as a countermeasure to US port fees on Chinese ships, it said. According to Reuters, the US would also impose fees on ships with connections to China upon arrival in the US in mid-October.
The US and China are the world's two largest economies. The two countries have been fighting a trade war since the beginning of the year.
It began in February, when US President Donald Trump imposed a 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods and then another 10 percent. He justified this by saying that China had not stopped exporting the drug fentanyl to the United States.
The US tariff on Chinese goods was then raised further and at one point was as high as 145 percent. China's tariff on American goods was 125 percent.
China was not the only country hit by Trump's tariff hammer. Almost every part of the world was subject to tariffs on exports to the United States.
Last week, China's Ministry of Finance announced, according to the AFP news agency, that China would extend the suspension of an increased tariff of 24 percent on American goods for one year, but maintain a basic tariff of 10 percent.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and the US president recently met in South Korea. The two spoke in positive terms about each other and a future relationship between the two countries both during and after the meeting. Trump added, according to Reuters, that he and Xi agreed on "almost everything".
After the meeting, Trump agreed to reduce tariffs on Chinese goods by 10 percent, so that from November 10, they will be 47 percent.
/ritzau/
Text, graphics, images, sound, and other content on this website are protected under copyright law. DK Medier reserves all rights to the content, including the right to exploit the content for the purpose of text and data mining, cf. Section 11b of the Copyright Act and Article 4 of the DSM Directive.
Customers with IP agreements/major customer agreements may only share Danish Offshore Industry articles internally for the purpose of handling specific cases. Sharing in connection with specific cases refers to journaling, archiving, or similar uses.
Customers with a personal subscription/login may not share Danish Offshore Industry articles with individuals who do not themselves have a personal subscription to Danish Offshore Industry.
Any deviation from the above requires written consent from DK Medier.
