FOR YEARS the shipping industry lamented sea blindness among the global political elite.

Now, amid unprecedented geopolitical challenges, shipping is finally visible and the great powers are scrambling to bolster national interests.

That is easier said than done.

Donald Trump may have said that shipbuilding will make America Great Again. He may even believe it. But it is going to take a lot more than a new White House department and restrictions on Chinese “spy” cranes to manifest whatever misty-eyed, misremembered version of history he is trying to resurrect.

It may have only recently come to the attention of US and EU leaders that China now dominates in maritime, but that evolution happened over decades. 

China viewed shipping as a key strategic sector at a point where western economies had all but forgotten about maritime, and they will not be giving up their hard won dominance easily. 

Trump may be painting BlackRock’s $22.8bn takeover of 43 ports owned by billionaire Li Ka-shing’s CK Hutchison as a US win, but don’t mistake this for anything other than a spectacularly opportunistic bit of deal-making fuelled by politics. It is not the beginning of the end to China’s supremacy in shipping. 

The scale of China’s industrial policy support and its shipbuilding and maritime value chain presence has created leverage over western shipping firms that will only be amplified if China can continue to assert a lead in zero-emission fuels and vessels.

Ironically for such a climate sceptic government seemingly determined to reverse progress away from fossil fuels, the US is pledging to re-enter shipbuilding at a point where dominance is going to require them to go green.

Assuming a coherent US maritime strategy emerges from this late bid to reclaim strategic control, it may be no bad thing for the wider sector, but the US is going to have to wait a while to see any resurgence as a result of these words. 

Likely winners will include South Korea, where the more pragmatic end of the US debate is already acknowledging that partnering with the number two shipbuilder might represent a more realistic start than opting for their domestic yards, where prices are up to five times more expensive than China.

But any US plan is going to be competing with the EU and China who are approaching their own strategic plans with similar gusto.

For the EU, shipping is now intrinsically linked to energy and trade security. But political plans are easy enough to produce — action, and the financing to enact it, less so.

For years shipping has lobbied longingly for such high level political attention — the fact that it has arrived just at the point the industry is facing more geopolitical headwinds than ever before is just part of the opportunity, and risk, that lies ahead.

Richard Meade
Editor-in-chief, Lloyd’s List

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