AMERICA’S new president cites Trump: The Art of the Deal as his second-favourite book after the Bible. Presumably the prevalence of religious sentiment in the US forced him to concede the number one slot to the Almighty, just this once.

There are differing accounts of just what proportion of the words were penned by Donald Trump himself. All of them, Trump insists; none, according to his ghost writer.

Unkind reviewers felt that even by the unctuous standards prevailing in the celebrity autobiography genre, this one was unduly self-aggrandising. Some even suggested that large chunks of the proffered account were fabricated.

As a soi-disant master negotiator, Trump is obviously aware of the concept of a win-win situation. Indeed, he has been known to bandy around terms such as a “win-win-win situation” or even a “win-win-win-win situation” when in rhetorical flight on the campaign trail.

This brings us to the proposals emanating from Trump’s US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer to charge punitive port fees to Chinese operators, shipowners of any nationality using China-built tonnage or with vessels on order at Chinese shipyards, and perhaps even owners with any Chinese vessels in their fleet.

That means basically everybody. All substantial shipping companies stand to be charged up to $1m and perhaps more for the privilege of their vessels being allowed to call at a US port.

The big idea is to incentivise owners to buy ships from countries other than China, and hopefully the US once plans to rejuvenate its shipbuilding sector reach fruition.

At this point, concerned interjections from the reality-based community need to be taken on board urgently.

Mediterranean Shipping Co chief executive Soren Toft, in his capacity as chair of the World Shipping Council, believes such charges would land the industry with an annual bill in excess of $20bn.

Many owners will reluctantly accept the commercial imperative to bow to Jamieson’s edict. CMA CGM, for instance, has promised to order around 20 vessels from US yards for its American President Lines subsidiary, which was US-owned prior to passing into French control in 2016.

But even in the best-case scenario, it will take years for US shipyards to retool and then build the requisite new tonnage.

How might this pan out for shipping?

One theory is that shipowners who include three or four US ports in their rotations will drop one or two calls while passing the cost of unavoidable exposure onto shippers, ending up in pocket.

But that is only half the story. Congestion at Los Angeles, Long Beach and New York/New Jersey would be off the scale, while smaller ports risk finding themselves all but idle.

Moreover, shippers — especially those faced with 100% tariffs on their commodities — can reasonably be expected to kick back. In many cases, a $1m impost represents more than cost of transporting dry bulk and more than the value of goods themselves. Some will almost certainly be forced to quit the US market altogether.

Nor will China take this lying down. As the Chinese embassy in the US belligerently expressed its government’s stance on X: “If war is what the US wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end.” The prospect of reciprocal port fees by way of retaliation can hardly be excluded.

Even if trade flows are somehow magically maintained, the impact on pricing for end users and consumers will be hugely inflationary, heavily to the detriment of the US economy.

To be clear, for most shipping companies, using vessels untainted by any connection with China is not an option.

China has been the dominant nation in shipbuilding for more than two decades now. On one estimate last year, some 81% of the world boxship fleet was built in that country. The corresponding figure is 75% for bulkers and 48% for LPG carriers.

There is a reasoned case that such ascendancy was achieved through underhand means. Biden-era USTR Katherine Tai initiated an unfair trade investigation against Chinese shipbuilding.

The subsequent report concluded that a combination of state support, barriers for foreign competitive, intellectual property theft, restrictive procurement policies and forced technology transfers provided Chinese yards with an unfair advantage.

Other factors include attractive financing terms from Chinese banks and leasing institutions, much improved quality and competitive pricing compared to such rivals as South Korea.

Yet we are where we are. China-built ships are the industry’s workhorses and aren’t going anywhere any time soon.

Most economists deprecate Trumpian economic nationalism. Even the smallish minority prepared to offer qualified defence for ideological reasons accept that it will entail considerable pain, with predictions of an impending major recession that is already being dubbed “the Trump slump”.

The second Trump administration is not yet two months old and has so far shown a propensity to table outrageous demands and then backtrack as soon as the victims make concessions.

The port fee policy could be just the latest iteration of this Friday night, poker dad, card school mentality. If go ahead it must, phasing it in over a decade or more would still be a bad move, but at least an attainable real-world goal.

The Art of the Deal, remember, is striving for win-win. As things stand right now, instant gun-to-head port fees look rather like lose-lose.