Ports and shipping lines are braced for a “whipsaw” in demand as businesses race to stockpile Black Friday and Christmas goods during the 90-day ceasefire in the US-China trade war.
Analysts warned that the sharp drop-off in container ship bookings from China to the US following President Donald Trump’s April “liberation day” tariff announcements would now be followed by an equally rapid surge in imports that will test port handling capacity.
“First we’ll see a massive drop in cargo arriving in US ports; then a massive surge as goods now waiting on the quayside in China are shipped to the US. It’s a carbon copy of the whipsaw effects we saw in the pandemic,” said Lars Jensen, chief executive of Vespucci Maritime consultancy.