Cover Story ambient _ pix / Shutterstock. com of international trade. Under the Economic Recovery Act of 1948, now known as the Marshall Plan, the Congress appropriated $ 13.3 billion for European recovery, some of which went toward rebuilding shipyards in Europe and Japan.
In the 1980s, the US government terminated subsidies for domestic shipbuilding and began construction of 600 Navy warships, which supplanted commercial vessels in domestic yards.
“ We lost our way,” Trump told reporters on March 6.“ For many years we didn’ t do anything. We used to build a ship a day,” he said, adding that he would unveil the details of a larger US shipbuilding program in the coming weeks.
Those comments came during an Oval Office meeting with CMA CGM Group Chairman and CEO Rodolphe Saadé, who announced the Marseille-based carrier will
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congestion globally combined with limited greenfield port projects.
“ Globally, terminal capacity is under significant constraint. Globally, port congestion is growing,” said van Trooijen.“ There is a lack of greenfield projects out there that will deliver expansion, so getting your hands on existing capacity, and especially a portfolio of this size, was a once-in-a-decade opportunity.”
The ratio of a ship’ s time at sea versus time in port has grown from 80-20 to 70-30 in recent years, said Johnson Leung of Linerlytica. China in recent years has stopped building port capacity ahead of demand as it did for many years, leading to growing congestion at Shanghai and Ningbo.
Controlling terminals enables carriers to control costs at the terminal, tightly coordinate port calls and ensure its ships are guaranteed priority on arrival and departure. Control of hub ports is deemed the essential ingredient in delivering the 90 %-plus schedule reliability promised by the hub-and-spoke Gemini alliance.
“ Controlling key port infrastructure provides carriers with cost and operating efficiencies that are difficult to achieve with non-carrier-affiliated terminals and government port authorities,” Levesque said.
The growing dominance of the top tier of carriers, where MSC crossed the 20 % market share threshold and the top five carriers control 65 % of capacity, according to Alphaliner, is forcing thirdparty terminal businesses to align with key carriers able to provide the volume needed to keep terminals profitable.
“ For a big terminal operator, you increasingly need to have a long-term relationship with carriers with whom you have more than average cooperation if you want to safeguard your future for the long term,” van Trooijen said.“ Terminal operators who are successful are the ones who have developed long-term carrier relationships.”
Special Correspondent Keith Wallis contributed to this report.
email: peter. tirschwell @ spglobal. com www. joc. com April 7, 2025 | Journal of Commerce 13