The proposal suggests that the money collected from these fees should go into a special fund. This fund would help support American shipbuilding by investing in things like building ships, getting the right materials, and training workers.
This request was made in a petition filed by the United Steelworkers and supported by Senators Tammy Baldwin and Bob Casey. They want the US Trade Representative, Katherine Tai, to look into China's unfair practices in shipbuilding. They argue that these practices harm American workers and could even be a threat to national security.
"Chinese-made ships should be charged"
The petition offers a few solutions. One of them is to put a fee on every Chinese-made ship that comes to a US port. The size of the fee would depend on how big the ship is and how old it is. The idea is to make it more expensive for China to continue its unfair practices and to encourage them to stop.
This proposal is based on a law from 1974 called Section 301. It allows the US Trade Representative to respond to unfair actions by other countries that hurt American businesses.
The unions also want to create a fund to help American shipbuilding. This fund would work like a subsidy that the government used to provide to shipbuilders in the past. It helped keep the industry going even when facing tough competition from other countries.
