I guess the battle has begun. US imposed fees on Chinese vessels entering US ports. And now China has announced similar fees for US vessels, or vessels with significant US ownership entering Chinese ports.
A whole bunch of variables start to come into play - type of cargo, who’s exporting, vessel build location, etc. Is this where DHT’s strategy of selling its Chinese built VLCCs becomes an advantage? Is anyone other shipper safe? I think Safe Bulkers (SB) has mostly non-Chinese built vessels. FRO is good on the VLCC category. But, not on Suezmax and Aframax/LR2.
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Okeanis (ECO) also has a 14-vessel fleet of tankers, all built outside China. However, is the VLCC route US Gulf Coast to China impacted by current developments? On the VLGC side, same kind of issue with Dorian LPG (LPG). With Dorian’s physical presence in the US, there might even be an ownership issue. At least from what was suggested in the OP, seems like cargo-wise, mostly container cargo inbound.
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Like DHT in the VLCC segment, NAT is similar in that its Suezmax fleet is also all non-Chinese built. But, with NAT, I don’t the route dynamics impact the company. I would guess their runs are primarily into Europe. Possibly, the new Guyana route.
[Edit 10/18/25: I just perused NAT’s fleet list. The company does have at least one Chinese built vessel –https://www.nat.bm/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Technical-data-for-Nordic-Vega.pdf ]
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Given the vessel yard origin will have some impact, I decided to address the issue with another significant holding - INSW. The company has some newbuilds, Sale & Leaseback and charter-ins, plus owned vessels. One of the newbuilds recently delivered, but all 6 are from a South Korean yard. Overall, if I added the numbers right, 80% non-China & 20% China (I did count Samsung (Ningbo) vessels as Chinese, since the yard is in China).
https://www.intlseas.com/fleet/default.aspx
It occurred to me, that the vessel owner might not directly be impacted by the tariffs. However, the owner will more impacted by the charterer’s decision which might impact the availability of hire. Two VLCCs in a US Gulf port (one Chinese built, one non-Chinese built) - if the charterer is covering the cost of the fees, isn’t it likely the non-Chinese vessel is preferred? INSW is particularly impacted on the VLCC side as 7 of 11 VLCCs are Chinese built. That said, INSW could just make plans to keep the seven Chinese-built VLCCs from trading in US ports.