Cover Story
Lengthy import wave extends tonnage troubles, congestion
By Bill Mongelluzzo and Mark Szakonyi
The trans-Pacific peak season began earlier than anticipated and will extend well into November.
The year began with slumping US imports from Asia before recovering in May. But there wasn’ t enough tonnage available when tariff-concerned importers began frontloading again, pushing up container spot rates for some port pairs and sailing weeks to levels not seen since the COVID-19 pandemic.
“ The truth is that the peak season started early and was stretched out through the summer and early fall, with the difference from month to month often amounting to little more than a rounding error,” Jonathan Gold, vice president for Supply Chain and Customs Policy at the National Retail Federation( NRF), said in the latest Global Port Tracker report from the NRF and Hackett Associations.
US imports from Asia, including the Indian subcontinent, rose 2.1 % year over year through September, according to data from PIERS, a sister company of Journal of Commerce within S & P Global. Volumes jumped 12 % in September from the same period in 2025.
“ The peak season started early and was stretched out through the summer and early fall.”
Microbeans / Getty Images
Total import volumes will slow in November and December, according to Global Port Tracker, but not by much. In fact, if its projections for the fourth quarter prove accurate, annual volumes of 25.8 million TEUs would equal the pandemic-induced record set in 2021.
“ Core economic indicators are broadly flat or weakening slightly month over month recently,” Hackett Associates founder Ben Hackett said in the report.“ Despite this, consumers appear to remain confident and cautious at the same time, with consumer confidence indexes sliding to multi-year lows while consumer spending continues to be robust in the face of increasing inflation.”
An import boom of shipments tied to data center hyperscalers is also contributing to tight inbound utilization. Those shipments of server racks, wiring, poles, cables and other hardware destined for data centers— which tend to be of a higher value than consumer merchandise and move at higher base rates— have been the“ hidden element” in the extended peak, as Jon Monroe, an adviser to Asia-based forwarders, put it. A PIERS analysis suggests data center volumes added as much as 100,000 TEUs to the trade in September.
Space on US East- and Gulf Coast-bound services has remained particularly tight due to Panama Canal draft restrictions and the fact that it’ s comparably easier www. joc. com November 2, 2026 | Journal of Commerce 11