The White House announced tariffs on Chinese vessels, but one of them is amusing, Washington is truly a makeshift team!
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officially issued a notice, clearly stating that additional fees will be imposed on vessels owned, operated, or built by Chinese shipyards starting from October 14th.
However, behind this seemingly strict policy lies an embarrassing reality: due to the U.S. government shutdown, the CBP does not have enough personnel to carry out this work, so it can only let ship owners self-report and pay the fees.
This is quite funny. Which ship owner would voluntarily get fined millions of dollars just for fun? However, the U.S. CBP claims that because salaries have been suspended, daily operations have been severely affected, and a large number of civil servants cannot go to work, leading to the agency not having enough personnel to enforce the fee collection against Chinese vessels.
Facing the dilemma of manpower shortages, the CBP proposed a rare solution in its announcement: letting ship owners decide whether they need to pay the fees. The notice clearly stated, "Deciding whether to pay the fee is the ship owner's responsibility, and has nothing to do with the CBP."
This regulatory approach relying on corporate self-discipline is practically meaningless in practice. Washington's actions have proven to the world that it is truly a makeshift team.
Original: www.toutiao.com/article/1845670917017607/
Statement: This article represents the personal views of the author.