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Port Freeport’ s commission had initially prepared to put the cranes into a bonded warehouse to defer any import duties and allow time for US-China trade negotiations to take place or the US Supreme Court to rule that Trump’ s tariffs were illegal. But commission staff said the port faced the risk of an additional tariff up to 100 % from the US Trade Representative’ s( USTR) proposed action against Chinese crane makers.
“ If the cranes are put in customs bonded warehouse status, it’ s unlikely that tariffs will go lower than 30 %; however, there is a greater risk the rates could go higher,” commission staff said.
Similarly, the South Carolina Ports Authority had originally budgeted $ 25 million for new cranes from ZPMC to be deployed at the Port of Charleston. But in light of the Trump administration’ s tariff actions, the port revised its budget to account for non-Chinese cranes that will cost $ 34 million.
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Saying that the fee is under review, a spokesperson for the Vancouver port declined to comment. The fee for loading empty equipment onto vessels is half that of laden export containers, which is $ 35.15 per FEU.
Carrier pushback
According to the Shipping Federation of Canada, Vancouver has justified the fees in presentations to the industry, saying the handling of empty containers places wear and tear on infrastructure and the boxes take up terminal space, so the fees would help ease port congestion by encouraging movement of the containers. The shipping federation has countered by saying that the terminal operator, not the port authority, takes on such costs and that wharfage by its definition only applies to laden cargo.
“ The surcharge will help us recover the costs of maintaining infrastructure that empties strain daily.”
US. The clash comes as Prime Minister Mark Carney trumpets the need to make Canadian exporters more competitive and diversify trade away from the US.
The fees at Vancouver and Montreal are expected to yield millions of dollars. Vancouver shipped out approximately 507,000 TEUs of empty outbound containers in the first half of 2025, which would have accrued $ 8.9 million if the new surcharge had taken effect at the start of the year.
The Shipping Federation in the spring appealed the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority’ s then-proposed empty container fee, asking the Canadian Transportation Agency to intervene. The agency has not yet responded; a decision against the port authority could spur lawmakers to introduce legislation. A bill that would have allowed port users to challenge fees was introduced in the Canadian Parliament in 2023 but was never passed.
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There’ s a natural imbalance in the weight of inbound containers loaded with items such as toys and other retail items compared with outbound containers loaded with heavier agriculture and machinery exports, the shipping federation noted in a March 12 comment on Vancouver’ s fee. Thus, it said, it’ s not uncommon to“ top off” outbound vessels with empty containers to optimize ship utilization.
“ The concept of incentivizing the carrier to fill more empties with export cargo makes no sense within such a context, as the vessel’ s cargo carrying capacity is inherently constrained from both an operational and commercial perspective, and cannot simply be expanded in response to a new financial measure imposed by the port,” the federation wrote.
The group added that the new fee disadvantages container transport versus bulk and multipurpose shipping and criticized the lack of transparency on how the fees would be invested in infrastructure.
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November 3, 2025 | Journal of Commerce 29