US president Joe Biden has signed into law a bipartisan bill designed to lower ocean shipping costs and reduce inflation.
The new law seeks to bring down shipping costs by forcing ships that drop off cargo at US ports to fill their remaining cargo space with US exports, instead of racing back to Asia or Europe with empty containers onboard. It also directs the Federal Maritime Commission to investigate the late fees shipping lines charge their customers when cargo gets stuck in gridlocked ports.
Both Biden and Congress seek to blame an anti-competitive oligopoly of foreign shipping lines for colluding to artificially raise prices on American consumers. “They raked in the profits and the costs got passed on, as you might guess, directly to consumers,” Biden said at a June 16 signing ceremony for the law. “Sticking it to American families and businesses because they could.”
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