Backwards & forwards

Against the backdrop of Election Day and new actions concerning sanctioned entities (with potential for the more impactful “secondary sanctions” looming), what are port officials supposed to do? In earlier columns, I’d suggested that ports would need to be flexible with their policies related to international shipping. While I can pat myself on the back for being prescient for thinking about on/off switches, the problems/ opportunities facing port executives, and international trade players generally, are more complex, and certainly more impactful, than I had envisioned.

Indeed, the situation that has played out during 2025 has suggested that the tenets of international trade, bringing countries and businesses together over many years, decades really, lowering costs, and bringing about efficiencies, may be shifting. In certain parts of the maritime world, notably with petroleum and product carrying tankers, there are effectively two parallel universes at play. While shipping generally has now seen a one year reprieve regarding port fees for vessels and the associated challenges, we don’t know what might happen a year out in November 2026. In outlining the dynamics here, a number of expert analysts and commentators on international trade have described bifurcations, and all the inefficiencies that come with them, that will likely linger for a while.

One example of how ports may try to play in the new arena is built around the notion of “green corridors”- where two ports (or more likely regional agglomerations) will develop trade routes for transporting specific cargo flows across an ocean, with a cleaner fuel (compared to conventional diesel) available to support the particular back and forth. Admittedly, the recent pause at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) concerning the timetable for reducing greenhouse gas emissions has taken the emphasis away from fuels. However, the general concept, where certain ships (again, the concept could be expanded to the fleet level) are deployed semi-exclusively in particular trades.

So, when the ports post their tariff books, maybe not everyone will be treated the same; certain preferred cargo shippers and owners might be treated better than others. That’s the emerging face of bifurcations, fractures and fragmentations, the new face of global trade, at least for a while.