International Maritime

COMMENTARY

By Peter Tirschwell

With US consumer spending holding up, retailers will need more freight, and soon.

Trans-Pacific imports fell off a cliff in September, tumbling 11.8 % year over year, according to PIERS, but the absence of an obvious pullback in consumer spending or economic slowdown has some carriers and forwarders predicting a strong recovery in volumes in the first quarter of next year.

The story of 2025 has been one of frontloading US imports to avoid higher tariffs. But warehouses and gateway ports like Los Angeles-Long Beach are completely fluid despite handing more cargo over the summer than they did at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022.

This points to goods flowing through the system through to final sale, which supports the

view, as reported by several US-based banks in recent earnings calls, that consumer spending remains solid.

Container dwell times at Los Angeles and Long Beach terminals have been relatively low all year, outside of a brief spike in rail container dwells in the first quarter, according to data from the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association. Intermodal equipment providers tell the Journal of Commerce chassis are being returned more quicky, indicating containerized cargo is arriving at warehouses and being quickly unloaded for onward distribution.

With US consumer spending holding up, evidence points to inventory not piling up but rather moving through the supply chain and being sold. To some veteran freight professionals, that suggests retailers will need more freight, and soon.“ We see an overcorrection occurring on US imports, which we think will result in a very strong bounce back in the first quarter,” said Trond Prestroenning, CEO for the Americas region at forwarder Fr. Meyer’ s Sohn.

“ In the first quarter of 2026, there will be a mini revival similar to COVID in terms of volumes,” said a senior US-based carrier executive.“ Warehouses are depleted and you can see some real movement of volume, and space will become tight.”

The falloff following widespread frontloading that resulted in an early peak season materialized in September, with total US imports down more than 9 % from August and 8 % year over year, according to data from PIERS, a sister company of the Journal of Commerce within S & P Global. That came after volumes grew more than 5 % in the first seven months of the year.

And those volume declines are forecast to accelerate through the remainder of the year in what looks like a pronounced post-peak season lull. The Global Port Tracker report, co-written by Hackett Associates and the National Retail Federation( NRF), projects total US imports will fall 12.3 % year over year in October, 19.2 % in November and 19.4 % in December and remain below 2025 levels through at least February.

“ This year’ s peak season has come and gone, largely due to retailers frontloading imports ahead of reciprocal tariffs taking effect,” Jonathan Gold, vice president for supply chain and customs policy at the NRF, said in the October Global Port Tracker report.

Yet, there is no evidence to suggest a massive pileup of inventory in the US, with stocks remaining roughly aligned with demand.

Inventory-to-sales ratios for retailers— which have hovered between 1.28 and 1.32 this year, according to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis— suggest that businesses“ are holding leaner inventories than expected amid the frontloading narrative,” Maersk said in an Oct. 1 market update. Inventory-to-sales ratios compare the value of a company’ s inventory to net sales and provide a measure of how quickly inventory moves off the shelf.

These relatively lean inventories come amid what has been, so far, a limited economic fallout from tariffs and stubborn inflation. US GDP growth is forecast at 2.3 % next year, down slightly from the prior forecast of 2.4 %, according to S & P Global Market Intelligence.

That is leading to optimism in some segments of the supply chain, like warehouse space.

“ Demand has clearly turned a corner. The market is in an inflection point,” Christopher Caton, senior vice president and global head of research at Prologis, Inc. told investors on Oct. 15, as reported by CapIQ Pro.

email: peter. tirschwell @ spglobal. com www. joc. com November 3, 2025 | Journal of Commerce 19