Container ship owners swamped as US-China trade detente revives demand

Lisa Baertlein, Farah Master and Casey Hall

Fri, May 16, 2025, 12:36 PM 4 min read

By Lisa Baertlein, Farah Master and Casey Hall

LOS ANGELES/HONG KONG (Reuters) -Container vessel bookings for China-to-U.S. cargo person surged since the countries declared a 90-day truce connected punitive tit-for-tat tariffs past weekend, operators said, spawning postulation jams astatine Chinese ports and factories that could instrumentality weeks to clear.

U.S. importers of sneakers and sofas to operation supplies and car parts are racing to get goods successful earlier the deadline resets tariffs again, mounting the signifier for disruptions that callback the planetary transport quagmire during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The cargo surge astatine large commercialized gateways similar Shenzhen's Yantian Port, which handles much than a 4th of China's exports to the United States, has vessel owners scrambling to coordinate berths and set vas schedules.

"The request is truthful precocious that we tin lone service customers who person made semipermanent contracts with us," a spokesperson for German instrumentality vessel relation Hapag-Lloyd told Reuters. "We person hardly capable abstraction for spontaneous bookings."

Container-tracking bundle supplier Vizion said mean bookings for the 7 days ended connected Wednesday soared 277% to 21,530 20-foot equivalent units from the 5,709 TEU mean for the week ended May 5.

Owners of factories that marque toys to vacation decor told Reuters they are booking antecedently frozen cargo headed to U.S. stores, including Walmart.

Lalo, for example, which sells its babe furnishings online and done retailers similar Target and Amazon.com, is among the companies that gave factories the greenish airy to determination their finished orders.

"We had hundreds of thousands of units waiting to ship," said Lalo co-founder Michael Weider. "These products tin present get connected the water."

"Everybody is precise engaged from my company, astatine my friend's companies," said Richard Lee, CEO of NCL Logistics, successful China's confederate metropolis of Shenzhen. "They are preparing a batch of cargo, a batch of products, to beryllium shipped instantly from China to the U.S."

SECOND TSUNAMI?

The shipping surge volition construe into a unreserved of arrivals astatine U.S. West Coast ports successful the coming weeks.

Still, manufacture experts, including the enforcement manager of the Port of Los Angeles - the busiest U.S. seaport and No. 1 for water shipments from China, bash not foresee a COVID-level tsunami of cargo. Rather, they task a large, but manageable wave.

On Thursday, the off-contract spot complaint from Shanghai to Los Angeles changeable up 16% from the anterior week to $3,136 per 40-foot container, according to information from maritime consultancy Drewry. That is little than fractional than successful April 2024, but could leap sharply connected June 1 to astir $6,000 per instrumentality if vessel owners propulsion done complaint increases.