Tariffs, strikes threaten to spike costs for US imports

by Brendan Murray

Spot container rates for shipping goods to the US from Asia have spiked over the past month as companies look to avoid higher tariffs and pad their inventories ahead of a strike threatening to close ports responsible for roughly half of the nation’s seaborne trade volumes.

Booking a 40-foot container to the US West Coast from Asia went for $6,000 as of Jan. 1, a 50% jump from $4,004 a month earlier, according to data from Xeneta, an Oslo-based freight platform. The rate to the East Coast was $7,100, a 31% increase.

The market is tightening on “a lot of uncertainty,” said Emily Stausbøll, a senior shipping analyst at Xeneta, an Oslo-based freight analytics platform. “2024 was an extremely challenging year for shippers and life isn’t getting any easier as we head into 2025.”

For more than a year, the world’s container fleet has mostly avoided sailing through the Red Sea because of attacks by Houthis on vessels with connections to the west – diversions that are expected to continue until safe passage is restored. The longer journeys have reduced capacity, putting upward pressure on container rates for much of 2024.

Concerns about future supplies are driving the recent market challenges. The threat of a strike at US East and Gulf Coast ports looms later this month, as does the higher tariffs on American imports that President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to impose on goods from China and other major trading partners.

“When you add the unpredictability of Trump’s trade policy into the mix, you begin to see why it is so difficult for shippers to manage supply chain risk and freight spend in the face of such complex and a wide-ranging threats,” Stausbøll said.

She said that demand growth looks set to slow later in the year, and that the current pressures and higher spot rates may be confined to the first quarter.

Most ocean shipping costs aren’t paid at spot rates – they’re paid under the terms of long-term contracts between cargo owners and carriers. But the spot market influences negotiations for long-term rates that typically take place during the first quarter of the calendar year.

Copyright Bloomberg News