A top loader moves a container at the Fenix Marine Services terminal at the Port of Los Angeles in Los Angeles, California, US, on Friday, Aug. 15, 2025.
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Typically, this is the time of year when shipments into the U.S. are peaking ahead of the holidays, but 2025 is a different story. As Chinese exports continue to plunge, overall freight trade to the U.S. has slowed to a crawl.
Imports from China have faced three straight weeks of 27% year-over-year declines, according to data from Vizion, and the latest ocean freight bookings data shows that a traditional rush of freight containers into the country in late September is not likely to materialize.
“Normally, we would expect a peak starting from the last week of September ahead of Golden Week,” said Catherine Chien, chairwoman of global shipping and logistics company Dimerco Express Group. Golden Week is a major holiday week in China during which many businesses are closed. “So far, there are no clear signs or major orders in the market indicating this trend,” she said.
The top five product segments contributing to the reduction in Chinese exports to the U.S., according to data analysis by Vizion, are furniture, toys and sporting equipment, electrical devices and components, machinery, and plastic and plastic products.
The toys category is a good example of what logistics professionals describe as a flatlining of trade between the U.S. and China.
“Toys and sporting equipment are on trend with 2024, but in the most recent 10 weeks after the peak, it has trended flat at an average of 20% less volume compared to last year’s peak season,” said Kyle Henderson, CEO of Vizion.
There are some exceptions to the overall trend, such as rubber and organic chemicals, that match or slightly exceed 2024 booking activity volume since May, a month when the frontloading of inventory caused a freight container volume spike as President Trump offered short-term extensions of effective dates for tariffs first announced in April.
Recent years have also included slowdowns in Chinese freight shipments ahead of Golden Week for a variety of factors — 2024 had its own frontloading period ahead of the threat of port strikes in the U.S., and in 2023, fears of consumer demand led to lower than typical shipping activity.
But this year, it’s the trade war’s early peak season front loading and a steady decrease in orders to a more modulated level since that is the story in freight, according to data from SONAR.
Honour Lane Shipping, which is one of many companies that book ocean freight out of China for U.S.-based retailers, wrote in a recent note to clients that the impact of the trade war brought a “very short lived, but strong spike in late May and early June.”
The Port of Los Angeles reported a record number of containers as recently as July as a result of the tariff pause.
But Honour Lane described the period after the spike as being followed by “a swift decline and slow recovery.”
“Manufacturers are basically seeing a very slow gradual increase even before Chinese Golden Week,” its note to clients reported. “Many customers have reported increasing inventory levels in the U.S. and paused shipping temporarily.”
According to HLS, ocean carriers have so far announced 35 blank sailings for October. The ONE alliance of ocean carriers including CMA CGM, COSCO, Evergreen, and OOCL suspended an Asia to U.S. service route between multiple Chinese ports and ports in Long Beach and Oakland, California, for the first week of September. Less ships means less container capacity, and that also pushes ocean freight rates higher, with a $1,000 general rate increase (GRI) per forty-foot container starting September 15.
The trade war’s continuing significant negative impact on North American trade can be seen in the fact that North America is the only region which has experienced negative freight container volume growth during the trade war period, according to Sea-Intelligence.
“Typically, ocean peak season, when the bulk of holiday goods are shipped, starts in July and continues through October,” said Noah Hoffman, vice president of North American Surface Transportation for C.H. Robinson. “This year, it peaked in July.”
The National Retail Federation’s new Global Port Tracker, produced with Hackett Associates, shows that after near record peak season numbers during the summer, import cargo volume at the nation’s biggest container ports is forecast to “steadily decline for the remainder of the year.”
“We have seen the implementation of reciprocal tariffs across the globe, with a number of key trading partners being subjected to tariffs higher than the earlier 10% tariffs,” NRF vice president for supply chain and customs policy Jonathan Gold said in a statement released with the new trade data. “We also continue to see more and more sectoral tariffs impacting a wider scope of products. Retailers have stocked up as much as they can ahead of tariff increases, but the uncertainty of U.S. trade policy is making it impossible to make the long-term plans that are critical to future business success.”
“The trade outlook for the final months of the year is not optimistic,” said Hackett Associates founder Ben Hackett in the NRF release.
August inventory data compiled by the Logistics Managers’ Index, which tracks inventory and warehousing metrics, warns of the decrease in freight volumes having a trickle down effect on trains, trucks, and warehouses that make money by storing or moving trade.
“The fact that we saw freight capacity go up in August of all months suggests that there isn’t much freight left to move,” said Zachary Rogers, associate professor of supply chain management at Colorado State University, a member of the LMI. “The lack of freight right before peak season is probably a combination of some inventories having been pulled forward already, and potentially less being in the system overall,” he said.
