The prospect of a Republican administration in the US may be challenging for shipping’s goals of reaching net zero, an MSC Group executive says.
Bud Darr, the Swiss shipping giant’s executive vice president for maritime policy & government affairs, expressed concern in the event of a Trump victory.
“It’s a challenge for us in shipping to convince a Republican administration that decarbonisation is not only something that our business needs … but is also an enormous economic opportunity that I believe both Europe and the US have slept on,” he told the Shipping UK conference in London organised by the UK Chamber of Shipping.
Darr used the example of China having it “figured out” and standing “ready to sell all the rest of us the stuff we need to decarbonise”.
“We’re missing that train in Europe. We’re missing that train in the US,” he said.
“There’s huge potential for developing and bringing to market the technologies, and, more importantly, the fuels that are required for the energy transition, and we’ve got to convince a Republican administration that it’s in their interest if we do change White Houses.”
Darr admitted that this was the strangest election cycle he has ever seen.
“It’s too close to call and anybody that says they know [the outcome] is a liar, or they’re not paying attention,” he added.
“Some bizarre things have happened in this election, and they’ll continue to happen.
“It will produce an odd result in the end and likely a split between the White House and the two chambers of Congress.”
Darr said notions about what it is going to look like under either administration have been turned on their head.
For example, he highlighted how the container chassis tariff under the Trump administration, “a ridiculous thing to do just before the pandemic”, was not overturned by President Joe Biden and is still in place.
He also outlined how the Biden administration put a tariff on ship-to-shore cranes when there was no production available in the US, which was another example that goes against conventional notions.
However, Darr does not envisage an overall slowdown in trade despite admitting “in a Trump world, tariffs are meant to be a big stick”.
He added: “The tariffs will make a difference. They may change trade patterns, but let’s face it, when manufacturing of these particular consumer goods went outside the US and Europe, the same dynamic happened there.
“Consumers weren’t willing to pay the price of the domestically produced goods. That fundamental doesn’t change because control of the White House changes and control of the Congress changes. So I would say, keep the big picture in mind.”
‘Bizarre’ US port strike
Darr, who previously served in the US Navy and is now based in Geneva, also commented on last week’s US port strike, labelling it “one of the most bizarre longshoremen labour negotiations in history”.
He said: “They had, on the one hand, the president saying, ‘I fully support the collective bargaining process. That’s what has to be done here’, that then turned around and did almost everything possible to undermine that collective bargaining process, at least on the employers’ side, and walked away with the result where, honestly, they publicly shamed us for having the audacity to put a 40% pay raise over six years on the table.
“And then we had [at] the same time [former] President Trump taking some shots at shipping too. Making out we were somehow evil and exploiting American workers.”
