Its shares have now topped price levels seen in the Trump Bump immediately after the election in November 2016. Like all else with President Trump, everything is “nuanced”, a polite way of hinting at the need to look at multiple points of view in order to determine what’s happening, and why.
During 2016, both the Republican Trump and his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton had both made “infrastructure” a campaign issue, though it got drowned out by cyber things like emails and data hacks. So, in the week after the crowd-filled Inauguration, the Democrats came out loudly trumpeting their alternative $1trn plan, which includes circa $65 -$70bn for seaports, inland waterways and airports over a 10 year timeframe.
Simultaneously, the Republicans were sending around a list of prioritized projects, which included port work at Savannah, Port Newark and inland waterway work on the Illinois, Ohio and Monongahela Rivers, besides work done on the Mississippi River near the Port of New Orleans. The Democrats would seek to fund their programme, with specific projects not yet announced, by tightening up existing tax loop-holes- but with the Government spending the money; the Republican approach would see tax credits to private developers (further increasing the deficit).
But what if they built all the new port infrastructure, and less cargo than forecast came? Even though sea ports would clearly gain funding, the impacts of Trump trade-related policies on actual shipping tonnages at deepwater ports are anybody’s guess. In New York’s main container ports, at Port Elizabeth and Port Newark both on the New Jersey side of the harbour, channel dredging to 50 feet finished last year and the raised Bayonne Bridge will eliminate air draft restrictions in late 2017.
But businesses headquartered in New Jersey, bolstered by anti-Trump rhetoric from local academics, have expressed concern about the impact of tariffs on containerised import cargo that has been projected to arrive on containerships from China. Consider another aspect of the muddied trade picture.
President Trump’s fresh endorsement of the Keystone Pipeline, tabled by his predecessor, comes with the requirement that the pipeline’s steel must be US produced. Yet also look at the just opened dry bulk terminal at Paulsboro, New Jersey near Philadelphia at the site of a one-time BP tank farm, where a handymax is expected to bring in the first inbound cargo- a boatload of steel produced by the Russian steelmaker NMLK, which has leased space at the new terminal. Planning for the terminal, run by the Holt family, dynastic in Philadelphia region’s stevedoring, began well before the election. But, like other parts of the business, long lived assets don’t always match up with shorter term realities.
Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. Seatrade, a trading name of Informa Markets (UK) Limited. Add Seatrade Maritime News to your Google News feed.
