News / 'Volume carnage' at US ports from tariff turmoil will lead to 'multi-year declines'

Los Angeles Harbor Pier 400. Photo: © trekandshoot

Fresh evidence of the damage wrought on US container volumes by the chaotic implementation of tariffs has emerged, with the top 10 largest ports in the country showing a 6.6% year-on-year decline last month.

According to new data compiled by liner analyst John McCown of Blue Alpha Capital, the September decline followed a marginal 0.2% uptick in August, with volumes during both months likely buoyed by shipments out of Asia front-loaded at the last minute to avoid the 7 August revised reciprocal tariffs.

“The new tariffs did not apply to containers that were loaded on vessels at their last foreign port before 7 August, provided they entered the US before 5 October,” wrote Mr McCown.

“Given that voyages in most key container lanes involving the US take from two to four weeks after the last foreign port, that translates into the large majority of boxes coming in August being exempt from tariffs.

“That mechanism would even have some loads coming to the US in September, particularly on long voyages from Asia to the east coast, that would also have been exempt,” he added.

However, while August saw the highest-ever volume of shipments in a single month, on the Container Trades Statistics (CTS) database, volumes coming into US ports fell 9.9%, while volumes on trades outside the country rose considerably – which is particularly noticeable given that last year the US was by far the fastest-growing container import market.

“The gap between US and worldwide container movements favouring the former that was evident in 2024 narrowed in early 2025, and has now gone away completely and inverted in a pronounced way.

“From being well ahead of the rest of the world, the US is now well behind,” wrote Mr McCown.

And the September decline is likely to be a portent for the final quarter of the year, which is now expected to be so weak that it will reverse the relatively strong performance earlier in the year and lead to a full-year decline over 2024.

Mr McCown said: “2024 saw a 15.2% increase in total inbound loads to the US compared with 2023. To say that the annual total for 2025 will be diametric contrast is an understatement.

“The National Retail Federation’s latest estimate is that 2025 will end with total inbound volumes being 3.4% less than 2024. That translates into the last four months being down 15.7% compared with the same four months in 2024.”

And he argued: “I believe that is a reasonable estimate and, unfortunately, the volume carnage does not cease at the end of 2025 and will continue into 2026.”

This, and the expectation that President Trump’s tariffs are here to stay, has led Mr McCown to abandon his well-established metric that US container volumes would exhibit 2.7% growth over the long term.

“That was developed before the current and planned tariffs came into effect and is clearly no longer relevant. We are now looking at the real possibility of multi-year declines, and will need to arrive at a new equilibrium point before we can then estimate growth.

“That figure will likely be below 2.7%, given the array of factors that have been, and continue to be, erected as barriers to trade that did not exist in the past,” he said.