China's tightening of controls on exports of related rare earth elements reflects the country's firm determination to safeguard national security as well as world peace and security. This was stated by the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association on Sunday.

The statement was made after China's Ministry of Commerce and the General Administration of Customs announced on April 4 the imposition of export control measures on seven medium and heavy rare earth elements.

As the association noted, these rare earth metals can be used for both military and civilian purposes, and the Chinese government's export control measures are fully based on international practices.

The industry association emphasized that if enterprises are not engaged in activities that undermine China's national sovereignty, security and development interests, export controls will not affect their normal business and trade activities, much less the stability and security of international supply chains.

China's rare earth element enterprises will, in view of the requirements announced on April 4, firmly adhere to high-level openness to the outside world and continue to strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation with friendly countries, the association added.

Danish shipping logistics company A. P. Moller-Maersk A/S has acquired a railway connecting seaports on both sides of the Panama Canal, limiting the U.S. presence on a key trade route. This is reported in a press release from Maersk.

As part of the deal, the port operator Maersk APM Terminals acquired the Panama Canal Railway Company from a joint venture controlled by Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) and the American Lanco Group.

From the point of view of APM Terminals, the railway "represents an attractive investment in the region's infrastructure as part of the provision of intermodal container transportation services."

The deal is aimed at optimizing CPKC's portfolio for the development of its core railway business in North America as part of a network connecting Canada, the United States and Mexico.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

For months, Donald Trump has opposed increasing Chinese influence in the Panama Canal, calling the transfer of control of the canal to the Panamanian government a "failed deal." In March 2025, BlackRock Inc. submitted an offer to acquire two ports on both sides of the Panama Canal from Hong Kong's C.K. Hutchison for $19 billion, but the proposed deal has faced opposition from the Chinese government and may be postponed.

The Panama Canal Railway Company operates a seventy-six-kilometer railway running parallel to the Panama Canal and connecting the seaports on both sides of the Panama Canal. The capacity of the railway is about 2 million TEU, taking into account the two-tier arrangement of containers. The headquarters is located in Panama.

Maersk is a Danish shipping company in the maritime cargo transportation and port terminal maintenance sector. The headquarters is located in Copenhagen (Denmark) with representative offices and subsidiaries with a staff of 100,000 employees in 135 countries. In 2024, Maersk ranked second in the world with a 14.6% share in the container shipping market.

China’s Jiangsu Qinfeng Shipbuilding has secured orders from Jiangsu Lvhang Logistics for up to six containerships.

The deal, with an undisclosed value covers one firm and five optional 1,138 teu newbuilds, with the first vessel expected for delivery by November 2026.

No further details have been divulged, except that the boxships have been designed to run on LNG.

The yard, established in 2007, won orders for 16 methanol-powered bulkers from Wuhan Innovation Jianghai Transportation last September. The 15,000 dwt and 19,600 dwt newbuilds are touted as the first Chinese coastal ships to run solely on the low-carbon fuel.

During last year's season, the company operated 13 voyages between Shanghai and Arkhangelsk, carrying more than 20,000 TEUs. In 2025, NewNew Shipping plans to employ larger container ships on the Arctic Express No. 1 service.

Within a few years, the operator expects to expand its June and December navigation window by launching five specialized ice-class container ships currently under construction at a Chinese shipyard.

The second Arctic container shipping operator, Safetrans Line, has not yet announced its plans for 2025.

The governments of South Korea and Japan plan to use maritime trade as a bargaining chip to avoid the unfortunate fates of Canada and Mexico, the first two U.S. allies hit by the White House's tariff proposals. Both Japan and South Korea have shown interest in a big-ticket LNG export project from the state of Alaska, and Korea is also pitching its shipbuilding capabilities as a way to build up American maritime power.

South Korea's trade and industry minister, Ahn Duk-Geun, met last week with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to talk about cooperation on shipbuilding and tech industry development. As an outcome of the discussion, Ahn's office said that Korea will be setting up a shipbuilding cooperation task force drawing on multiple government agencies, including foreign affairs and defense. The U.S. Department of Commerce will set up a similar working group.

Ahn told Korean media that the Trump administration is interested in accessing South Korea's sophisticated naval shipbuilding capabilities. The U.S. Navy is struggling to overcome cost and schedule issues with almost all of its major shipbuilding programs, in part because of supply chain and labor recruitment issues; South Korea has the world's second-biggest shipbuilding industrial base, and though it has labor issues of its own, it does have a much larger pool of skilled tradesmen to draw upon. One of its yards, Hyundai Heavy Industries, has built Aegis-equipped destroyers.

According to Business Korea, Ahn offered priority access to newbuild slots at Korean shipyards for package orders of warships, tankers and icebreakers - in return for guaranteed safety from U.S. tariffs. Those slots are hard to come by, as the orderbooks at Korea's Big Three yards are booked through 2027-8 in a hot commercial newbuild market.

"At this point we don’t know how the Trump administration will play out its trade policies in the long term. So what’s most urgent now is to secure a communication channel and keep negotiating in favor of our firms," Ahn said.

The other big offer on the table is the prospect of Asian investment in the long-stalled Alaska LNG project, a proposed pipeline and export terminal that would commercialize vast quantities of natural gas from the remote North Slope. The terminal near Anchorage would liquefy up to 20 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of LNG for export, but at an eye-watering construction cost of $44 billion.

"Currently, our country's energy supply is heavily skewed towards the Middle East, and imports of U.S. energy are important for energy security, so we are actively reviewing this," Ahn said. "We are also considering ways for private businesses to diversify energy import channels."

Japan is also in the running for a role in Alaska LNG, which had been all but defunct until the new flurry of diplomatic activity. In February, President Donald Trump described an agreement with Japan to offtake "historic" amounts of gas from the as-yet-unbuilt terminal.

"The administration is working on a gigantic natural gas pipeline in Alaska, among the largest in the world, where Japan, South Korea and other nations want to be our partner with investment of trillions of dollars each," President Donald Trump said in his recent joint session address.