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How One Rule Made Container Ships Ten Times Bigger
Description
Episode 65 of Global Trade with Fexingo dives into a single regulation that quietly rewrote the economics of ocean shipping: the 1984 Shipping Act in the United States. Lucas and Luna unpack how that law ended collective rate-setting by ocean carriers, triggered a wave of container ship gigantism, and concentrated global trade into just a handful of mega-vessels. They trace the knock-on effects: from port congestion in Los Angeles to the rise of alliances like 2M and Ocean Alliance, and why the largest container ship today can carry 24,000 boxes — ten times what sailed in 1980. Specific numbers and a clear before-and-after make this a concrete look at how one legal change reshaped the physical backbone of world trade. No fluff, just the rule that changed the game.