Category World News

China and the US have started charging additional port fees on shipping vessels as trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies soared back, following China’s rare earth export controls in response to new trade restrictions imposed by the Trump administration.

The port fees from both sides went into force on Tuesday and have caused fear among analysts, who say maritime trade has become a key battlefront between the two nations.

The new trade tensions erupted despite a pause in the tariff war, and come as Trump is expected to meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in South Korea at the end of this month.

China has accused the US of “double standards” after it threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on Chinese goods following last week’s rare earth curbs by Beijing.

Here’s what to know about the new port tariffs as the two countries are engaged in ongoing trade negotiations:

What are the port fees imposed by the two sides?

A White House executive order named “Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance” directed the US Trade Representative (USTR) to impose charges on owners and operators of Chinese-built, owned, or operated vessels entering the US by October 14  as follows:

• Vessel operators must pay $50 per net ton for Chinese-owned or operated vessels arriving at a US port, to be increased to $140 by April 2028
• Vessel operators of Chinese-built vessels arriving at a US port must pay $18 per net ton or $120 per container, which will be increased to $33 and $250, respectively, by 2028
• Fees are to be charged for a maximum of five times per year for individual vessels
• Long-term users of China-operated vessels carrying US ethane and liquified petroleum gas (LPG) are exempt till December 10

China, on October 10, retaliated and said it would also charge US-owned, operated, built, or flagged vessels additional levies starting from October 14 as follows:

• Vessels owned or operated by American companies or individuals will pay a 400 yuan ($56) per net ton fee for every voyage
• Ships or vessels built in the US or flying an American flag will pay the same amount
• The fees will be charged for a maximum of five trips per year, and will rise to reach 1,120 yuan ($157) per net ton
• Empty vessels entering Chinese shipyards for repair are exempt. Chinese-built ships are also exempt.

China’s Ministry of Transport said in a statement on October 10 that the tariffs were “countermeasures” meant to respond to the US’s “wrongful and discriminatory” practices.

In a separate but related move, China on Tuesday imposed sanctions on five subsidiaries of South Korean shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean, which it said “assisted and supported” US investigations into Chinese trade.

The US was the first to levy additional fees on Chinese-owned ships back in April in a bid to loosen Beijing’s hold on the global maritime industry and bolster US ship manufacturers. That decision followed an investigation under the Joe Biden administration that revealed China dominates global maritime, logistics, and shipbuilding using “unfair policies and practices” such as funnelling state funds into shipbuilding.

China hit back at the US and said it would also charge similar fees on the same day US tariffs were set to go into effect.

In a statement on Tuesday, China’s Ministry of Commerce said: “If the US chooses confrontation, China will see it through to the end; if it chooses dialogue, China’s door remains open.”

Who are the main players in the global maritime trade?

China dominates the global commercial shipbuilding industry, followed by South Korea and Japan, according to data from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Beijing built 53 percent of commercial ships in 2024, while the US produced only 0.1 percent of such vessels. Chinese state-owned China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) is the most significant player in the industry, and built more commercial vessels by tonnage in 2024 than all of the US shipbuilders have done since 1945, according to CSIS.

The state-owned CSSC also notably manufactures naval warships, and contributes to China’s status as having the largest naval fleet by ship numbers -at 355 vessels by 2020, according to a US Department of Defense report, compared with the US’s 293 naval vessels at the time.

While analysts point out that the US maintains the strongest navy based on firepower, China’s shipbuilding dominance has raised security concerns in Washington for several years.

Why did the US impose curbs on Chinese-built ships?

The US is attempting to loosen China’s grip on maritime dominance.

Washington first began mulling taking action against China’s shipbuilding capabilities in May 2024, after five US trade unions petitioned the USTR for “relief” against what they called China’s “unreasonable” practices in the maritime and shipbuilding sector, citing extensive state-led support for the Chinese shipbuilding and maritime sectors, which the US argues gives Beijing an unfair edge over competitors.

The USTR thereafter launched investigations into Chinese shipping trade practices. In January 2025, after President Trump was sworn into office, the department determined that Chinese actions “burdened and restricted” US commerce, and that action would be taken. Over several weeks, US trade unions and lobbyists testified at public hearings regarding the action to be taken, before Trump’s Executive Order “14269 – Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance” was published in April.

In March, President Trump, in an address to Congress, promised that his administration would “resurrect” the US shipping industry and added that he would create an “office of shipbuilding”.

“We are also going to resurrect the American shipbuilding industry, including commercial shipbuilding and military shipbuilding,” Trump told lawmakers, prompting applause from House Republicans. “We used to make so many ships. We don’t make them any more very much, but we’re going to make them very fast, very soon. It will have a huge impact to further enhance our national security.”

In a statement following Trump’s speech, Matthew Paxton, president of the Shipbuilders Council of America, praised the president’s move. “By fully utilising the existing domestic shipyard capacity, the shipyard industrial base can meet the growing demands of national defence, restore American competitiveness, and create thousands of skilled jobs in communities across the nation,” he said.

How will the tariffs affect global trade?

Analysts say the move on both sides is disrupting global trade operations already. Chinese container carrier COSCO could bear the most burden from the US fees, expected to cost the industry $3.2bn, while shipping intelligence firm Clarksons Research said in a report that China’s new port fees could significantly affect oil tankers, which account for 15 percent of global capacity, the Reuters news agency reported.

Major shipping links, including Danish-owned Maersk, German Hapag-Lloyd, and French CMA CGM, have reportedly swapped China-linked ships from their US shipping lanes, according to Reuters.

“We are in the hectic stage of the disruption where everyone is quietly trying to improvise workarounds, with varying degrees of success,” Ed Finley-Richardson, an independent dry bulk shipping analyst, told Reuters.

The analyst added that there are reports of US ship owners operating non-Chinese vessels trying to sell their cargoes to other countries while en route to China, so the vessels can divert. Reuters reported that it was not immediately able to confirm the claim.

Meanwhile, South Korean shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean is already facing Chinese sanctions on five of its US-linked subsidiaries. Hanwha is one of the world’s largest ship manufacturers, and owns the commercial Philly Shipyard in the US state of Philadelphia. Hanwha Ocean’s shares dropped nearly 6 percent following the announcement, Reuters noted.

What are the other trade curbs announced, and will this lead to an all-out trade war?

China, which has a monopoly on critical rare-earth metals used to manufacture electronics, tightened export controls on five of them on October 9 under its “announcement number 61 of 2025”, including holmium, erbium, thulium, europium, and ytterbium. That’s in addition to curbs on seven metals announced earlier in April.

President Trump, in retaliation, has threatened to raise tariffs on Chinese goods to 100 percent from November 1.

The US imposed heavy tariffs on Chinese goods earlier in Trump’s presidency, in an attempt to address what Washington views as imbalanced trade relations. Those tariffs were eventually eased after the two countries came to an agreement in September for a 90-day pause that is set to expire on about November 9.

The killing of far-right influencer Charlie Kirk last month by a 22-year-old suspect has brought into focus the epidemic of gun violence in the United States. While Kirk was a victim of political violence, investigators are now pointing to a growing trend where shooters are not necessarily inspired by a clear-cut political ideology.

Federal law enforcement officials have started using “nihilistic violent extremists” to describe perpetrators who do not easily subscribe to one ideology but appear to be motivated by a desire to, as one expert put it, “gamify” real-life violence.

The description appeared in a March search warrant application involving a Wisconsin teenager who was active on a Telegram network dubbed Terrorgram. Nikita Casap, now 18, is accused of killing his mother and stepfather in part of a larger plot to assassinate President Donald Trump, foment a political revolution and “save the white race” from “Jewish-controlled” politicians, investigators said, quoting from a document on Casap’s phone.

This “extremism” is not new, but the label seems to be.

“Nihilistic violent extremists”, a federal law enforcement officer wrote in the court filing, act “primarily from a hatred of society at large and a desire to bring about its collapse by sowing indiscriminate chaos, destruction, and social instability”.

In such instances, perpetrators often take what they learn in online communities as fuel for real-world horror. They may not singularly ascribe to the political left or right, to white supremacist thought or antigovernment “extremism”, as they glorify violence or seek destruction.

The National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center (NCITE) at the University of Nebraska preliminarily identified more than two dozen federal cases in which suspects fit this emerging “nihilistic violent extremism” classification, including the mass shooter at the Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis.

What are these cases, and how might they shape future domestic “terrorism” investigations?

How ‘nihilism’ fits with domestic violence and ‘terrorism’

“Nihilism” is a philosophical term associated with German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. It is the belief that all values are baseless.

“Violent extremists” are often trying to change specific government policy, University of South Florida associate professor Zacharias Pieri said. “Nihilistic extremists”, by contrast, don’t necessarily have any clear, stated objective, he said; they are “gamifying violence in real life”.

Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein and extremism researcher Jacob Ware began covering the term’s emergence in federal cases in April and May.

In September, FBI Director Kash Patel told a US Senate committee that “nihilistic violent extremism” plays a significant role in domestic “terror” investigations.

“We have in this country 1,700 domestic terrorism investigations, a large chunk of which are nihilistic violent extremism, NVE — those who engage in violent acts motivated by a deep hatred of society, whatever that justification they see it is,” Patel said.

Besides the Casap case, federal prosecutors have cited the “nihilistic violent extremism” label in a handful of news releases since March.

The Department of Justice in April called the online pornography network 764 “a nihilistic violent extremist (NVE) network” when it announced the arrests of two people it said were involved in targeting children for sexual exploitation online. “The 764 network’s accelerationist goals include social unrest and the downfall of the current world order, including the US Government,” the department said.

Several weeks later, the FBI used the term about an Oregon 14-year-old who the agency said planned a May explosives attack and mass shooting at a mall in Kelso in Washington state. The FBI said the teenager “shared nihilistic violent extremist ideology and the plans in online chats”.

KPTV in Oregon reported that police said the teenager posted the plans in an online chat. The teenager’s defence lawyer said the online chat was connected to 764, which the teen joined after being bullied at school.

For years, experts have said some ‘extremists’ defy a single label

In 2020, then-FBI Director Christopher Wray said some “violent extremists” hold a “salad bar of ideologies” containing “a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and what they are really about is the violence”.

“We’re having more and more challenges trying to unpack what are often sort of incoherent belief systems, combined with kind of personal grievances,” Wray told senators in 2022. He referred to a Minneapolis case in which two men aligned with the far-right, antigovernment Boogaloo Bois movement were charged with providing material support to the Palestinian group Hamas.

Other terms have also been used to describe these less absolute ideologies associated with violence. In the United Kingdom, law enforcement uses the term “composite violent extremism” to refer to “extremists” who hold “multiple distinct ideologies, sentiments, grievances, and fixations” and “mixed, unclear, or unstable ideologies”.

Experts said the NVE term is valid, but offered some cautions

Experts on “extremism” said they see value in using the term “nihilistic violent extremism” to acknowledge the evolving nature of threats.

Oren Segal, an Anti-Defamation League (ADL) extremism expert, said incidents in recent years involved suspects who appeared motivated to sow chaos.

“Those are fairly described as nihilistic,” Segal said.

The ADL said that school shooters in Evergreen, Colorado, Antioch, Tennessee, and Madison, Wisconsin, were active in online spaces that glorify violence and mass killings.

Marc-Andre Argentino, an independent researcher and expert on violent extremism, wrote in April that NVE “represents a convergence threat – part sadistic subculture, part extremist accelerationism, part organised cyber‑harassment – whose potency lies in its agility and absence of limiting ideology”.

Unlike a right-wing group that may study doctrine for months, “nihilistic violent extremists” share “bite-sized” information about how to carry out attacks such as knife attacks, vehicle ramming, or online crimes.

“The guiding principle is to flood the system with low‑cost, high‑chaos events – school shootings, animal‑cruelty viral clips, swatting campaigns – so that authorities expend resources faster than radicals expend effort,” Argentino wrote. “Tactically, NVEs seek maximum systemic shock with minimal organisational footprint.”

Experts cautioned against the term’s overuse.

“If everything is going to be lumped together as nihilist violent extremism, it does [a] disservice to those who try to understand where threats are emanating from,” Segal said.

Ware, a research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told PolitiFact that the label risks being used by prosecutors or a politicised FBI as “a blanket term that obscures or even excuses other ideological influences, especially white supremacy”.

One case with unclear motives was the July 4, 2022 mass shooting that killed seven and injured dozens in Highland Park, Illinois. FBI affidavits said the shooter told them he wanted to “wake people up”. His online activity showed he had a fascination with violence.

“This country is facing a growing threat of heavily armed young men who use too-easily acquirable weapons to commit unspeakable acts of violence,” Segal wrote after the attack. “Some of them are extremists; most of them are not. Whatever their motivation, they need to be stopped. For now, that may be the only analysis we can all agree on.”

Dozens of people have been killed and injured in fighting between Pakistan and Afghan forces on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Both sides traded fire and blamed each other for the escalation, as tensions between the neighbouring countries continue to rise.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared in court to testify in his corruption trial, days after U.S. President Trump called for him to be pardoned. Protesters outside the court demanded the trial continue as a test of Israel’s democracy. Netanyahu denies all charges.

Israel’s war on Gaza has not ended with the pullback of its tanks or the falling silent of its warplanes. Tens of thousands have been killed, hundreds of thousands of homes reduced to rubble, and some two million people driven from their homes. Yet the greatest danger may still lie ahead, for Israel intends to continue the war in another form, one that no longer requires its army.

In the vacuum left by Israel’s destruction, a grim new reality is unfolding. Armed militias are emerging, exploiting the collapse of social order and the deepening suffering of the people. These groups, which once claimed the mantle of “resistance” to the occupier, are increasingly turning their weapons inward. Rather than working to aid the defence of the homeland, they are seeking to impose control through violence, turning Palestinian pain into a currency for factional and political gain. Gaza, long under siege, once lived in suffocating isolation yet remained largely safe within its own walls. People feared Israeli air attacks, not criminal gangs or the gun of a neighbour. Today, fear has multiplied, from the occupation and from within.

The killing of journalist Saleh Aljafarawi in Gaza City’s Sabra neighbourhood stands as one of the most ominous signs of this new phase. The 28-year-old reporter, who had long documented Israel’s atrocities in Gaza and faced repeated death threats for his work, was shot dead days after the ceasefire, not by Israeli soldiers or drones but by Palestinian gunmen. His murder exposed the war’s continuation by other means: Israel has turned Palestinians against each other, spurring a cycle of fear and bloodshed that serves its occupation even in the absence of its soldiers.

Israel’s logic here is clear. It has long relied on an old colonial strategy: Divide and rule. A society consumed by internal violence cannot stand united against its occupier. By cynically fostering the rise of militias, Israel achieves two aims: Weakening Palestinian unity and reducing the burden on its own army. It avoids direct costs and international scrutiny, while Gaza continues to bleed from within.

The armed gangs now spreading fear in Gaza are not defenders of the homeland but Israel’s collaborators, serving its occupation under a different name. They were empowered during the war to act where Israel could not always act openly. Yet Israel’s history with Palestinians who serve its interests is clear: It uses them, then discards them. Once their purpose is fulfilled, collaborators are cast aside, disarmed or destroyed, left with neither honour nor protection. He who turns his gun on his own people may think himself powerful, but his fate is always the same: Rejection by his people, by history and even by the occupier who once used him.

For Palestinians, the consequences are nothing short of catastrophic. Liberation cannot be built on fear. When resistance loses its moral clarity, when it becomes indistinguishable from oppression, it collapses in legitimacy. The Palestinian cause has never been only about survival; it has always been about dignity, justice and freedom. These values cannot endure in a society where citizens fear not only Israeli aircraft but also armed locals who now terrorise their streets, serving both their own interests and the occupier’s. The region’s history bears witness: From Lebanon to Iraq, external powers have repeatedly exploited militias to fragment societies. Once unleashed, these forces rarely serve their people; their loyalties drift instead towards factional power, personal gain or foreign patrons.

The task before Palestinians is both urgent and existential: To prevent Gaza from sliding into a land ruled by militias rather than united under the banner of liberation. This requires a strong civilian will that refuses to legitimise such groups, political leadership that places national unity above factional interest, and international awareness that occupation destroys not only through bombs and siege, but also by tearing apart the social fabric and turning society into a battlefield of internal conflict.

The people of Gaza have already shown extraordinary courage and resilience. They have endured siege, relentless bombardment and mass displacement. They should not now be asked to endure the humiliation of being ruled by armed gangs who serve their own interests while claiming to act for their people. The strength of the Palestinian struggle has always rested on its moral clarity, a people demanding freedom against all odds. That clarity must not be surrendered to those who replace solidarity with fear and justice with domination.

Israel may hope to wage its war by proxy, imagining a Gaza where its people fight each other instead of resisting occupation. Yet Palestinians still have a choice. They can reject the path of militias and affirm that their cause is greater than any faction and stronger than those who place power above principle. The true danger today is not only Israeli air attacks but the erosion of the very essence of Palestinian nationalism: The conviction that liberation must belong to everyone and must never come at the cost of freedom or human dignity.