Peak Season Forecast: Ocean, Intermodal, Air and Trucking
Special Report
“ There’ s definitely been a ramp up in orders,” said Robert Khachatryan, CEO of forwarder Freight Right Global Logistics.“ Everyone seems to be concerned with the 90-day window.”
A carrier executive who asked not to be identified told the Journal of Commerce that factories in China should be able to quickly increase production, as most vendors paused or slowed down production after the 145 % duty went into effect, rather than completely shutting down and laying off staff.
“ There’ s definitely been a ramp up in orders. Everyone seems to be concerned with the 90-day window.”
Still, the source warned that importers“ have to ship now in case there is another tariff increase in August.”
The surge of bookings in the week following the announcement of the preliminary deal between Washington and Beijing ranged between 50 % and 100 %, depending on the carriers and forwarders surveyed. As they began repositioning ships back to the trans-Pacific and restarting suspended services, carriers also started to flex their pricing power, seeking spot rates on services from China to the US West Coast that are more than double the current level.
Capacity withdrawn in April and early May, when bookings were down by as much as 30 %, will return“ fairly quickly,” Hapag-Lloyd CEO Rolf Habben Jansen said during an earnings call on May 14.
But moving vessels back to the trans-Pacific and reversing blank sailings won’ t be as easy as flipping a switch, Nerijus Poskus, head of ocean procurement at Flexport, told the Journal of Commerce.
“ A lot of these ships have been deployed on other trade lanes— intra-Asia, Asia to Latin America, etc.,” Poskus explained.“ They are not just sitting and waiting, so shifting back capacity to the [ trans-Pacific ] will be not as easy as it seems and will take time.”
One forwarder who asked not to be identified said he didn’ t expect trans-Pacific capacity to return to pre-tariff levels until mid-July.
Following the initial imposition of higher tariffs on April 2, container lines cut deployed vessel capacity from Asia to the US West Coast by 18 % and Asia – East Coast capacity by 7 %, according to data from maritime analyst Lars Jensen.
On edge
Freighter exodus leaves trans- Pacific air cargo in limbo
By Greg Knowler
Although the reduction in“ de minimis” tariffs on Chinese exports to the US is unlikely to spark a surge in demand for air cargo on the trans-Pacific, any increase in demand could tighten capacity and push rates higher given the large numbers of freighter aircraft that have been shifted to other trade lanes.
Following trade talks in Geneva between the world’ s two largest economies, the US agreed to reduce the 120 % duty effective May 2 on any parcel from China and Hong Kong to 54 %. The US will still impose an additional $ 100 per parcel fee on May 14, but will not increase it to $ 200 in June as previously planned.
The trans-Pacific market saw a mass exodus of freighter capacity as e-commerce bookings dried up ahead of the Trump administration’ s May 2 elimination of the duty exemption for low-value shipments, with many aircraft being switched to Latin American routes. Data from air freight analyst Rotate shows daily average freighter capacity on the China-US corridor has tumbled 39 % since May 2.
The impact on demand has also been dramatic. Asia-North America air cargo volume in mid-May was down 20 % from the last week of April, at 73,037 tons, while volume on the Asia-Latin America corridor, a much smaller market, grew 23 % to 855 tons over the same period, according to Rotate.
Kathy Liu, vice president of global sales and marketing at Taiwan-based forwarder Dimerco Express Group, said the cut in tariffs would be a positive for the air cargo business, but warned that finding space could be difficult.
“ After the last week of April, a lot of orders have been on hold in China for the US market due to the uncertainty,” Liu told the Journal of Commerce.“ With this new announcement, a certain percentage of the orders will be released gradually. I believe we will see volume increase for air from China to the US from now on.”
“ A lot of orders have been on hold in China for the US market due to the uncertainty.”
The drop in demand in the first two weeks of May dragged down air cargo rates on China-US routes, with the average rate falling 8.8 %, according to the Baltic Air Index. Data from rate benchmarking platform Xeneta showed prices falling 9 % in the two weeks after the May 2 tariffs were imposed.
12 Journal of Commerce | June 2, 2025 www. joc. com