The tariff cliff came and went. The bill did not.

For six weeks, US importers pulled cargo forward to beat a date. The date arrived, and almost nothing got cheaper.

Section 122's 10 per cent global surcharge — the stopgap imposed in February after the Supreme Court struck down the IEEPA tariffs — expired by operation of law at 12:01am on 24 July, and a replacement took effect at the same minute: new Section 301 duties of 10 to 12.5 per cent covering roughly 80 countries and about 99.4 per cent of US imports. USTR grounded the action in a finding that trading partners had failed to enforce prohibitions on goods produced with forced labour, imposing an unreasonable burden on US commerce. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer's two-tier structure sweeps in China and Mexico among others.

The substantive shift is permanence. Section 122 carried a hard 150-day ceiling; the Section 301 layer has no statutory expiration, and the Liberty Justice Center filed a challenge the week it landed. Senator Ron Wyden introduced legislation on 22 July that would repeal Sections 122 and 338 outright and require congressional sign-off before any future 301, 201 or 232 action.

Ports, meanwhile, are staring at the hangover. The National Retail Federation projects July throughput at a record 2.47m TEU, then 2.22m in August and below 2m from September through November. Spot rates are already unwinding: Drewry's World Container Index fell 4 per cent to $4,374 per FEU, its second consecutive weekly decline, with Shanghai–Los Angeles off 6 per cent to $5,878 and Shanghai–New York down 4 per cent to $7,598.

Because the new duties largely replace an existing 10 per cent rate, no second frontloading wave is expected — leaving carriers to defend rates against full warehouses and a thinning autumn book.