Importers & Exporters Top 100 2025
Since 2019, resin exports from Charleston and Savannah have grown at nearly the same rate as those through Houston. Shutterstock. com logistics manager said.“ There’ s just not enough capacity.”
North-south trades, however, likely still managed to push Houston’ s export volumes higher in 2024. Chemical volumes from the US to Brazil, for example, grew 22 % last year.
But the north-south resin trade out of the US Gulf poses its own challenges, the ocean logistics manager said, particularly with alliance carriers and those that have slot exchange deals for capacity.
Because of port congestion in Brazil, many ships in north-south trades have been off schedule. Ocean carriers try to make up for the time by skipping calls at transshipment ports in the Caribbean and South America, but that can leave cargo booked through slot swaps or alliances stranded.
“ If the ships are coming a week late out of Brazil and the carrier has to make up time, what they are going to do is omit the other carrier’ s transshipment port,” the logistics manager said. He said the cargo rolls and delays were most common at the ports of Kingston, Jamaica, and Cartagena, Colombia.
With direct services to the other two largest US resins markets, Asia and Europe, shipments out of Southeast ports are not seeing similar issues. But overseas retaliation to the Trump administration’ s tariffs is likely to have a major impact on the resins trade this year.
After Trump put a 90-day pause on 20 % reciprocal tariffs on goods from the European Union, the trading bloc similarly backed down from its own retaliatory measures. While the EU may exempt US resins from any retaliatory duties due to the region’ s dependence on imports, the logistics manager said a prolonged trade war could favor resin producers in the Middle East.
“ Our team in Europe said that resins won’ t be on the list for retaliation against US,” the manager said.“ But no one has showed me anything yet that resins have been exempted. Until then, we’ re being very cautious.”
email: michael. angell @ spglobal. com
Tied to the US economy
Forest product exports are particularly sensitive to the US housing market, according to Zambo and industry economists. Many American hardwood logs and lumber are exported to China and Vietnam for use in cabinetry, flooring and furniture, products that are often imported back into the United States. When demand weakens for the finished goods, so too does demand for the raw materials used to produce them.
Recent housing data points to additional headwinds in the remainder of 2025.
US housing starts fell 11.4 % from the previous month in March to an annualized rate of 1.32 million units, the steepest decline since April 2020, during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to federal statistics. Roughly 60 % of residential construction firms surveyed by the National Association of Homebuilders said suppliers have already raised or announced increases in material costs due to tariffs, with input prices rising 6.3 % on average.
“ This will likely only add to existing affordability challenges, which combined with an expected slowdown in the economy will weigh on the homebuilding industry over the coming quarters,” TD Bank economist Andrew Foran wrote in an April 17 investor note.
The American Forest and Paper Association( AF & PA) is also closely monitoring the Trump administration’ s evolving trade policy toward Canada and Mexico, warning that new and increased tariffs could harm an already fragile sector.
www. joc. com
Paper and forest product export plunge extends into early 2025
Containerized US paper and forest product exports, in laden TEUs, with year-over-year change
TEU volume
80,000 70,000
60,000 52,803 50,000
000 100,000 40,000
30,000 20,000 10,000
Source: PIERS, S & P Global
0 L Apr Jul Oct Jan 2024 Apr Jul Oct Feb Jan, 2025
TEU
Year-over-year % change
The association said that turning wood chips into a paper product requires several steps that occur in different facilities in Canada, Mexico and the US in an integrated cross-border supply chain.
Paper products are duty free for now, if they meet the rules of origin established under the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement( USMCA) negotiated in 2020, but the AF & PA remain concerned about tariffs on certain raw material inputs from Canada involved in the process.
email: ari. ashe @ spglobal. com
40 % 30 % 20 % 20 %
10 1-40 %
0 %-10 %-20 %-30 %
Year-over-year % change
© 2025 S & P Globa
May 5, 2025 | Journal of Commerce 49