Early liner peak season gets underway

Amidst all the tariff bombast coming out of the White House last week, liner fortunes actually improved. Global spot indices were up marginally, with Drewry, the British architects of the World Container Index, suggesting that rates will increase in the coming weeks due to tariffs and reduced capacity.

“A boom and an early peak season into the US will start right now,” predicted analysts at Danish consultancy Sea-Intelligence in a weekly report, published yesterday. 

Last week, Trump announced a 90-day pause on a host of global tariffs he had planned, but increased levies on Chinese imports to 145%, while then announcing that some electronic products – including those produced in China – would be exempt..

“All US importers getting cargo from anywhere but China, are sure to fast-track volume in the next three months, to get their peak season goods through customs, before the July 9th deadline,” Sea-Intelligence explained. 

Clarksons Research data suggests that 6% of global container trade in teu is accounted for by US imports from China – the world’s two superpowers -which will now be charged at elevated tariff levels of at least 145%. A further 8% is at the 10% baseline level. 

Booking collapsed in the opening days of April as the world grappled with the specifics of the Trump administration’s tariffs. However, with the 90-day tariff ceasefire, container bookings are now picking up fast outside of China. 

“With tariffs from other trade partners currently on a 90-day pause, shippers are navigating a highly uncertain and fast-changing trade environment. The rest of 2025 is likely to bring continued volatility marked by demand swings, accelerated ordering patterns, and a re-evaluation of sourcing strategies the global response to these trade actions continues to unfold,” stated an update from TradeView a platform powered by Vizion in partnership with Dun & Bradstreet’s Shipping Insights dataset.

Global carriers are tipped to concentrate port calls at fewer American ports in the coming months, while switching some China calls to other Asian manufacturing centres. 

“For the smaller niche carriers, the trade war is particularly destructive,” Sea-Intelligence warned yesterday. “Most of them rely on large volumes from China on their services and are not well equipped to suddenly switch to alternate non-Chinese origin cargo. For some of these we can potentially expect full-service closures, for the duration of the trade war.”