Trump’s reciprocal levies on 60 countries go into effect today. The new tariff levels range from 11% to 50% and replace the basic ones that came into effect on Saturday. China has taken a particularly hard blow, with a direct retaliation imposing 104% levies.
The additional duties on China were triggered after Beijing refused to meet the deadline set by Trump to withdraw its retaliatory taxes on the US. President Xi Jinping had announced tariffs of 34% on all US imports on 10th April, at the same time depreciating its national currency to favour exports.
The US president’s tariff policy is already starting to have its first negative effects on the container shipping market.
Data from Vizion’s TradeView Global Trade Intelligence platform shows that over the last seven days, import bookings of twenty-foot boxes to the US have nosedived 67% on the previous week. A total of 169,000 TEUs compared to 516,000 TEUs the week before. If we only take container bookings from China to the US as a benchmark, the downturn recorded on a weekly basis is 63.5% (from 148,000 to 54,000 TEUs).
Bookings for export container shipments from the USA also fell: 83 thousand TEU were booked over the last seven days compared to 139 thousand in the previous week. If we just look at China as final destination, the figure drops from 148 thousand TEUs last week to the current 54 thousand.
“If these numbers are anywhere near correct, this is an extremely large disruption to the trade flows,” says Vespucci Maritime CEO Lars Jensen. “We will very shortly begin to see significant blank sailings from the carriers,” he adds, pointing out that shipping companies are already starting to take corrective action, starting yesterday with ONE, Yang Ming and HMM, announcing the suspension of the PN4 Pacific service, which was due to start in May.
Linerlytica points out that in 2024, China and Vietnam accounted for 51% of US container imports.
According to the market analyst, it will be difficult for the US to replace these two countries, not least because Trump’s axe has hit several South-East Asian economies hard: Under current conditions, the US risks stagflation if the current duties are applied without exemptions and exclusions.
Annual forecasts suggest that container volumes will drop by 1.1% in 2025, with demand remaining low throughout the summer season. The outlook for the future remains highly uncertain, however.
Translation by Giles Foster
