Jimmy Patronis Stunned By Maritime Commissioner's Response To His Question About China's Cargo Fleet

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During a House Transportation Committee hearing in July, Rep. Jimmy Patronis (R-FL) asked Rebecca Dye, Commissioner, Federal Maritime Commission, about how many cargo ships the Chinese have a controlling stake in.

Transcript

00:00Mr. Patronus recognized for five minutes question. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good

00:06afternoon. Hello. Commissioner, I'm sitting there, I'm reading your resume and you've

00:12seen a lot of activities over your your time at the Commission. Thank you for

00:17your service to our nation. Thank you very much. I guess where I kind of get

00:22some anxiety is thinking about how dynamic the situation is. Kind of a tough

00:27place to be as as much as I would like to see as much stateside manufacturing.

00:34We're definitely there's going to be those those dependencies we have on goods

00:39coming in and I can't imagine the dynamics of what happened at least with

00:45y'all's concerns during COVID supply chain disruptions and as you looked at where

00:52we're trying to at least onboard predictability and then I'm looking as I'm

00:57thinking about things like the games that might be played by by those other

01:03countries and their importance of getting into the US market. Do you see or have you

01:11seen or if you wouldn't mind elaborate I'd love to understand even if you want to

01:15I'll learn my stories. If you've got an instance of what you had seen between the

01:21United States and China where they have done unfair practices maybe leverage or

01:27maybe even saw anything during COVID enlighten me I this is an opportunity for

01:32me to learn. Well then I thank you we we have now we've added a couple of the

01:39controlled carriers owned or owned or subsidized by foreign countries five of the six are Chinese.

01:53We're a competition agency primarily and so we're looking to make sure to continually look at their

02:05look at their price structure to make sure that if there are subsidies then they

02:12don't they aren't used to below price to the detriment of the other carriers that

02:19are not owned or controlled by foreign countries and we'll be watching even more

02:30carefully and I think October when the trade rep charges begin that that doesn't cause the control

02:44carriers to make some decisions or some pricing decisions that we think are a problem.

02:53So did you say that five of the six control carriers are subsidized by China?

02:58If I were the six are controlled. Wow.

03:02Owned or controlled. And I'm assuming one they they probably want that type of influence in order

03:08to continue their goods getting out of market but that also gets me super concerned of what type of

03:15dependence that we've got when they've got that much control over the products that we depend upon.

03:20Well there are there plenty of carriers okay and we're we're we watch each of them we don't have

03:33authority over actual mergers we watch other combinations among the carriers and unlike a merger

03:42um we watch them all the time continuous continuous as as of other countries have an influence over

03:53ownership over carriers of this nature who's number two who's number three

03:59which other countries really we have one uh one other one that is um korean okay and those are the

04:08only ones to date it's been different in the past sure sure and and so with no control over the mergers

04:17or any of the carriers that china has influence over were those acquired through acquisitions

04:22oocl um was the uh the hong kong company um was acquired sure sure um well again thank you for

04:37your service appreciate your answers and your time being here today thank you very much mr chairman i yield

04:43gentleman yields

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