Cargo traffic at ports around the United States has recently dropped dramatically, but that trend might change soon.
As of May 14, the U.S. drastically lowered tariffs on Chinese goods, bringing them down from a high of 145% to 30% for a 90-day period. The move eased ongoing trade tensions between the two nations.
In order to restock inventory before tariffs could increase again, experts believe that retailers would hurry to import items during the temporary relief.
“We’ve seen in our business, roughly a 30 to 40% decrease in volumes coming out of China into the U.S,” said Charles van der Steene, North American President of Maersk, a Danish conglomerate known for shipping container services. “The last part of that, if not the entirety, is the result of most shippers pressing the pause button. The expectation is the pent-up supply will now make its way back into the supply chain and hence back into our organization.”
There has already been a noticeable increase in activity at the Port of Seattle, where no ships were stationed recently. According to experts, the rise is probably going to continue.
“We anticipate that by midsummer that we’re gonna see a surge, we’re gonna need to staff up significantly,” said Ryan Calkins, commission vice president for the Port of Seattle. “We’re gonna need to bring in all the longshore gangs that are looking for work right now back to the terminals to make sure we can operate at full capacity to manage all that.”
This spike would be similar to one earlier this year when companies bought more products in anticipation of higher tariffs.
