U.S. ambassador warns China’s maritime reach is a coercion risk

U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom Warren Stephens used remarks at the International Maritime Organization on July 8 to argue that China’s growing control over ports, ships and supply chains should be treated as a strategic coercion risk, not just a commercial presence.

Stephens said Beijing has pursued port concessions and infrastructure around the world in ways that could give it leverage over sovereign countries. He urged maritime regulators and governments to scrutinize deals involving state-linked enterprises more closely.

The ambassador framed the issue as a wider question of sovereignty. In his telling, control over maritime infrastructure can shape trade routes, access and political pressure when tensions rise.

Stephens also tied the warning to U.S. economic exposure. He said the U.S. maritime transportation system supports about $5.4 trillion in annual economic activity and nearly 30 million jobs, underscoring why Washington sees maritime policy as part of national security.

China’s maritime reach

A central part of Stephens’s argument was the scale of China’s shipping and industrial footprint. He said China builds more than half of the world’s ships and dominates ship-to-shore cranes and shipping containers.

That concentration, he suggested, matters because maritime access is not only about trade efficiency. It can also create leverage if infrastructure, equipment or operating rights are controlled by a state that is willing to use them in a dispute.

The remarks fit into a broader U.S. campaign to challenge Chinese influence over strategic infrastructure, especially in sectors where commercial activity and security concerns overlap.

Panama as the warning case

Stephens pointed to Panama as the clearest recent example of the risk he was describing. The dispute over ports linked to the Panama Canal has become a proxy battle over foreign control of critical infrastructure, trade routes and sovereignty.

That conflict intensified earlier this year. On January 29, Panama’s Supreme Court ruled that CK Hutchison’s port concession was unconstitutional. In March, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused China of bullying Panama after Panama moved against the ports and ships flying the Panamanian flag were detained.

AP later reported that 92 of 124 Panama-flagged ships were detained in March, based on the U.S. framing of the dispute. The report highlighted the scale of the fallout from the fight over the canal ports.

In April, AP reported that CK Hutchison warned of possible legal action after Panamanian authorities chose A.P. Moller-Maersk to temporarily take over the two canal ports. That suggested the dispute remained active and unresolved even after the initial political clash.

Stakes for trade and security

The Panama Canal case matters because it sits at the intersection of global commerce and geopolitical leverage. The two ports at Balboa and Cristóbal are part of a wider debate about who should control strategic infrastructure and how governments should screen foreign ownership or operation of critical assets.

For the United States, the issue is also about precedent. If maritime infrastructure can be used to pressure a country in one dispute, Washington argues, the same model could matter elsewhere along major shipping routes.

China has repeatedly rejected claims that its overseas infrastructure investments are coercive. Beijing presents such projects as commercial partnerships that support trade and development, not tools of political pressure.

That dispute over intent is now central to the policy argument. The same ports, ships and terminals that governments describe as ordinary business assets can also be interpreted as strategic leverage in a crisis.

What comes next

Stephens’s speech did not resolve the underlying conflict, but it signaled that the U.S. intends to keep pressing the issue in international forums.

The immediate questions are whether the IMO issues any formal response, whether China answers the speech directly, and whether Panama’s port dispute produces further legal or operational changes.

For now, the story is less about a single port fight than about how Washington wants the world to think about maritime infrastructure: as a commercial system with clear security consequences when control becomes concentrated.