Tariff rip-tide reality setting in for North American shippers
Container cargo flow data shows Asia-North America peak season business boom rapidly turning to bust in 2025’s second half
It’s getting harder to laugh off the impact of tariff turmoil on container shipping supply chains.
John McCown’s latest data set underscores that reality.
June’s top 10 U.S. container port numbers from the New York-based container shipping analyst show inbound volume down 7.9% compared with June 2024.
Export flow also dropped.
McCown’s year-on-year June numbers show it down 5%.
You might be able to discount those downturns were they one-off container traffic stumbles.
But they are not.
McCown notes that June’s 7.9% import decrease through the country’s largest container ports is the second straight month of declines and a sharp contrast to April’s import gain of 9.6% compared with the same month in 2024.
The percentage change in containerized cargo imports through the top 10 ports in the United States shows the deceleration of traffic in Q2 2025 | John McCown
The Donald Trump administration’s April 2 “Liberation Day” opening salvo in the America’s global tariff war demarcates the start of supply chain disruption and global trade uncertainty.
McCown’s report points out that Q2 2025’s container terminal imports were 1.8% lower than the same three months in 2024, but were more dramatically down from Q1 2025’s 9.6% increase compared with the same quarter in 2024.
That Q2 slowdown also contrasts with import increases in Q4 2024 (up 12.5%) and Q3 2024 (up 17.6%).
A portion of those 2024 increases can be attributed to retailers restocking inventories to avoid looming tariff war skirmishes.
But there is little doubt that trade-lane traffic and trading partner alliance allegiance have shifted permanently.
They are among disruption’s collateral damage.
McCown predicts that 2024’s 15.2% overall annual import growth at the top 10 U.S. container ports will be followed by an overall import decline in 2025.
“That,” he says, “will be one of the more striking year-to-year changes in U.S. container volume in the six-decade history of container shipping.”
A change that McCown adds will “be due to tariffs, and unfortunately there is nothing at present that suggests it will be short-lived.”
Neither, it appears, will international trade and tariff uncertainty be short-lived, and that will have a lasting negative impact on North America’s business prospects and prosperity.
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