Soybean shipload worth more than US$20 million circles off China, victim of trade war with US
The Peak Pegasus rushed to China’s shore in the hope of clearing customs before Beijing imposed retaliatory tariffs but arrived too late
A shipment of soybeans worth more than US$20 million (HK$157 million) has been bobbing aimlessly in the Pacific Ocean for a month, a casualty of the escalating trade war between China and the US.
Lingering uncertainty over the cargo’s fate offered a timely reminder of the fallout from a dispute that intensified on Wednesday, as US President Donald Trump unveiled a second round of tariffs on US$16 billion of Chinese goods, prompting Beijing to respond in kind.
The Peak Pegasus, a 229-metre bulk carrier weighing 43,000 tonnes, has become the reluctant symbol of the potential consequences of this tit-for-tat trade spat.
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The ship, owned by JP Morgan Asset Management, was scheduled to unload about 70,000 tonnes of American soybeans in the Chinese port of Dalian on July 6, shortly after Trump imposed a first round of tariffs on US$34 billion worth of goods.
As it rushed to shore in the hope of clearing customs before Beijing imposed retaliatory tariffs, the ship – and its protein-rich cargo – became an unlikely internet sensation on the Chinese social media platform Weibo.
However, the vessel arrived just too late and has been sailing around in circles ever since while the cargo’s owners, understood to be the agricultural commodity trading house Louis Dreyfus, decide what to do.
The Amsterdam-based company is thought to be paying about US$12,500 (HK$98,000) a day to continue chartering the ship, which is idling in the Yellow Sea off the coast of China, indicating extra costs so far of more than US$400,000 (HK$3.1 million).