European and Asian carmakers, already reeling from Donald Trump’s tariffs, face being saddled with steeper costs when shipping vehicles to the US, as Washington’s new port fee policy threatens to wreak havoc on the $150bn American seaborne car import market.

Having been ensnared in the shipping war between Washington and Beijing, car carrier operators will have to pay $150 for every vehicle they have capacity to carry into the US from October. That could equate to additional fees of about $1.8bn a year for the car carrier sector, according to Clarksons Research.

This comes after the US Trade Representative (USTR) in mid-April imposed a blanket fee on all non-US built vessels entering American ports, causing panic in the European, Japanese and South Korean shipping industries.