SHIPPING

Ocean carriers spent late July telling shippers that rates would jump on 1 August. The week has arrived, and the increases are dissolving on contact. The container lines had lined up General Rate Increases of $2,000 to $3,000 per forty-foot box for the start of the month, an attempt to arrest a steady slide in spot prices. The problem is that they undercut themselves getting there. In the run-up, carriers deliberately cut rates to stimulate demand, and by late July the trend

For months the US import machine ran on a single deadline. That deadline came and went on 24 July, and the freight market is now living in the aftermath it spent all summer front-loading to avoid. The temporary 10 per cent Section 122 surcharge expired as scheduled, replaced by a patchwork of new duties. Importers are already revising landed-cost models, with some tariff lines running 2.5 percentage points higher than the measures they replaced, depending on country of origin

The 10 per cent global import surcharge that has underpinned American trade policy since February lapsed at 12:01 a.m. last Friday, and the administration had nothing ready to take its place. Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 gives a president 150 days and no more. Signed on 20 February and effective four days later, the surcharge hit its statutory wall on 24 July. Only Congress can extend it, and no extension legislation is pending. The replacement is late. USTR blew thro

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 th

The 10 per cent global import surcharge that has underpinned American trade policy since February lapses at 12:01 a.m. Friday, and the administration has nothing ready to take its place. Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 gives a president 150 days and no more. Signed on 20 February and effective four days later, the surcharge hits its statutory wall on 24 July. Only Congress can extend it, and no extension legislation is pending. The replacement is late. USTR blew through

The most consequential fight in American shipping is no longer about congestion or freight rates. It is about a century-old law, and whether President Trump lets his own emergency waiver of it expire next month. Granted in March 2026 and later extended through August 16, the waiver permits qualifying foreign-flag vessels to move certain cargoes between US ports, traffic ordinarily reserved for ships that are American-built, owned, flagged and crewed. It is the longest and mos

American importers are barrelling into the busiest month in the history of US container shipping, and the driving force has little to do with consumer appetite and everything to do with a date on the calendar. The NRF and Hackett Associates Global Port Tracker projects 2.47 million twenty-foot equivalent units moving through US ports in July, the highest monthly total ever recorded. That eclipses the previous high of 2.4 million TEUs set in May 2022 at the peak of the post-pa

American importers are barrelling into the busiest month in the history of US container shipping, and the reason has less to do with consumer demand than with a date on the calendar. The NRF/Hackett Global Port Tracker projects 2.47 million TEU moving through US ports in July, the highest monthly total ever recorded, as shippers race cargo across the Pacific ahead of an expected August tariff jump. The 10% global tariff imposed under Section 122 lapses at 12:01 a.m. on July 2

American importers are racing the calendar, and the result is poised to be the busiest month in the history of US container shipping. The NRF and Hackett Associates Global Port Tracker projects 2.47 million TEU will move through US ports in July, the highest monthly total ever recorded, as retailers front-load ahead of an expected August tariff jump. The driver is a hard deadline: temporary Section 122 tariffs of 10% expire on July 24, with a fresh round targeting forced-labo

A rare collision of geopolitics, trade policy, and peak-season demand has sent ocean freight rates climbing again this week, and the clock driving it is loud. Transpacific spot prices jumped for another week, with Asia to U.S. West Coast and East Coast rates each rising 8 percent, while Asia to North Europe climbed 10 percent and Asia to the Mediterranean 11 percent. The surge is notable because it is defying the usual logic: falling fuel prices are not being reflected in con

It is not often that House Republicans line up to tell President Trump to stand down. This week they did exactly that, and the fight is over an obscure century-old shipping law that has quietly become one of Washington's sharpest maritime flashpoints. More than 50 Republican lawmakers, led by Speaker Mike Johnson, Oversight Chairman James Comer and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, sent the White House a letter urging the administration to let its sweeping Jones Act waiver expir

The French shipping giant CMA CGM has never been shy about its American ambitions. This week it wrote another cheque to prove it. The Marseille-based container line agreed to acquire FedEx Supply Chain, the third-party logistics arm of FedEx Corp, at an enterprise value of $1.4 billion, in a deal announced Wednesday and expected to close in 2026. The unit folds into CEVA Logistics, CMA CGM's contract-logistics subsidiary — and it is no bolt-on. The acquisition would nearly tr

The most consequential development for the US shipping industry this month is unfolding far from American shores — in the Strait of Hormuz, where a fragile reopening is reshaping global oil and container flows just as the domestic freight market hits historic highs. A 14-point US-Iran memorandum signed June 17, dubbed the "Islamabad Memorandum," set up a 60-day negotiating window and began easing the chokepoint that had throttled tanker traffic through the spring. But the unw

The guns have quieted in the Gulf, yet the bill for America's importers keeps climbing — a reminder that in global shipping, peace arrives faster than price relief. Following the June 14 ceasefire between the US and Iran, Washington has ended its blockade and the Strait of Hormuz threat level has been reduced further. But the path back to normal is fraught. Xeneta's chief air cargo officer warned that full normalisation will only be possible once mine clearance in the strait

The reopening of the Strait of Hormuz should have been an unambiguous relief for global shipping. Instead, an Iranian suggestion that it may start charging ships to pass through the waterway has set the industry on edge and exposed how fragile the post-conflict calm remains. Under an interim US-Iran peace deal, the strait is moving back towards normal operation after months of disruption that pushed up fuel prices and rippled through freight rates worldwide. But Tehran has si

The U.S. ocean shipping market entered the week balanced on a knife's edge, with container rates holding near multi-month highs even as a tentative diplomatic breakthrough raised the prospect of relief from the crisis that has reshaped global trade since late winter. Spot prices on the major east-west trade lanes held steady, preserving the sharp increases carriers pushed through at the start of June, when general rate hikes and peak-season surcharges added $1,000 or more per

The Strait of Hormuz remained effectively shut to commercial traffic this week, dragging the global supply-chain crisis past its hundredth day and pushing freight costs facing American importers sharply higher. As of 14 June, the waterway through which roughly a fifth of the world's oil and LNG normally moves was carrying a trickle of vessels, with monitoring services recording transit counts in the low single digits against a pre-crisis baseline near 94 per day. The choke po

Ocean carriers spent this week doing something they could only dream of through a soft spring: raising prices, and making them stick. Rate hikes and a wave of fresh surcharges that took effect June 1 drove Asia-to-U.S. West Coast spot prices up 51% in the most recent week, reaching $4,836 per forty-foot equivalent unit, according to the Freightos Baltic Index. Asia-U.S. East Coast prices increased 25% to $6,336 per FEU. Freightos research chief Judah Levine called the moves t

The continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz is reshaping US ocean freight economics, with bunker fuel costs, vessel scheduling and carrier surcharges all under sustained pressure as the standoff with Iran enters a new phase. Brent crude fell 3.8 percent to $97.38 a barrel last week, down from more than $115 earlier in the week, after Pakistan signalled that a US-Iran agreement could be near. The drop follows weeks of acute volatility driven by the closure of the strait, whe

The Trump administration escalated its maritime pressure campaign against Tehran this week, with the Treasury Department rolling out fresh sanctions targeting the network behind Iran's "shadow fleet" kingpin Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani, and U.S. Central Command reporting that its blockade of Iranian ports had turned away ten vessels since deployment. The moves came as the global shipping industry continued to absorb the logistical shockwaves of the Iran war, now stretching int