Ships, trucks and railroads measure the economic blow from tariffs.
Eyes on Shipping Data
The Wall Street Journal reports Wall Street Is Watching This Shipping Data to Gauge Tariff Impact
U.S. retailers and manufacturers have been stocking up on furniture, clothing, electronics and everything else that comes into the country by containership. That has caused a wave of containers to wash over the neighboring ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the main gateway for imports from China.
The pull-forward indicates that some U.S. businesses have enough inventory to last weeks or longer before having to refresh orders. Southern California port officials expect imports to fall steeply in May.
Expected Container Ships
Already, companies have paused bookings for containers that ferry everything from scrunchies to batteries across the oceans. Ryan Petersen, chief executive of Flexport, a San Francisco-based freight forwarder, said China-to-U.S. bookings have declined 60% since April 9. Petersen said that for the first time since his company was launched more than a decade ago, Vietnam is a bigger origin point.
And ocean carriers have been canceling sailings across the Pacific Ocean to the U.S. Almost 30% of such journeys were canceled for the week ended May 4, according to Flexport. At the Port of Los Angeles, imports are expected to fall 35% this week compared with a year ago.
“That’s going to have a huge impact on the logistics industry,” Petersen said. “Consumers probably won’t see this until later.”
Truck Orders
That looks like one of the worst seasonal adjustments in history. There are seasonal peaks mid-year, every year.
To make any sense of it, I added the down-sloping line.
Truckers are bracing for a tough year by pulling back on orders for big rigs. Net orders for heavy-duty trucks in North America tumbled to 16,500 vehicles in March, down 5.9% from the same month in 2024, with the highest order-cancellation rate in almost two years, according to ACT Research.
Trucking companies had been hoping 2025 would provide a long-awaited turnaround after several years of depressed rates for the sector. Tariffs have injected a new level of uncertainty into forecasts.
ACT Research President Ken Vieth said dealer inventory levels in March hit a record 91,600 vehicles as truckers were “flirting with global financial-crisis profitability levels.”
Supply-chain activity
The GEP Global Supply Chain Volatility Index, based on S&P Global’s monthly survey of 27,000 businesses in 40 countries, measures factors such as demand for goods, inventory levels and transportation costs. The March reading was taken as U.S. retailers and manufacturers pulled forward orders to stock up ahead of tariffs, but before Trump’s sweeping tariff announcements in April.
John Piatek, a vice president of consulting at GEP, said the biggest driver of March’s decrease was a pullback in manufacturing activity in North America while companies braced for higher purchasing costs and a possible slowdown in consumer spending. Piatek expects April’s reading will show companies cutting back further as they prepare for “worse economic conditions.”
What’s Going On With Shipping
May 4 Update
Volume from China is still coming in, but much of is because ships don’t turn around.
Select Comments
“Short-haul and long-haul trucking will be the most affected. The truckers are really taking the brunt of this.”
“You can’t swallow 145 percent tariffs. That is going to be shared.
“When US manufacturing is dependent on components coming from China, that is going to be built into US manufacturing costs.”
“Every 4 containers less coming into the US is one less driver needed.”
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