Trump wants to drink Londons milkshake, specifically the lucrative monopolistic pricing power of insurance, long held by Lloyd’s of London. I’m surprised the Americans haven’t done this earlier, but trump being the nationalist that he is would naturally want all the power to himself. The U.S. UK transatlantic partnership probably keeps Lloyd’s more relevant than it should have. It’s similar to the capital market rivalry between New York and London stock exchanges.
Another thing, in insurance, Trump has no choice, in times of catastrophe like a major bushfire or a war in this case, the state will have to step in as the insurer of last resort. It’s the only way to get those ships moving. The issue I see is the clear conflict of interest because trump is most likely going to use US debt as security for that guarantee, which means more printing, more debt.
Bit of background: maritime insurance is actually the oldest and first forms of insurance, back in the day traders from Europe to China would all collectively pool their money and split their cargoes across different ships in a trading fleet, so if they lost one ship to storms, piracy etc, they’d still get a payout.
