AMONG the Trump tariff memes inundating social media, there’s one where the US president is spinning a game-show wheel. Chance determines where the rate ends up, from 10% to 145%, whether there’s a refund, whether levies are back on or off, or whether the penguins in the Heard and McDonald Islands will pay the price.
That meme sums up today’s cost uncertainty for US importers. Current tariff dynamics make earnings forecasting impossible for giants like Amazon and Walmart and could push some small and medium-sized businesses into bankruptcy.
The largest share of US containerised imports — the 39% of total teu arriving from China — is now under severe stress. Container shipping participants have only seen this situation once before: during the initial Covid lockdowns in China.
Tech reprieve won’t rescue ocean shipping demand
Most containerised goods shipped from China to the US are still tariffed at 145%, a level so high it is forcing US businesses to pause orders when possible.
Smartphones, computers and electronics won a 90-day reprieve on Friday and are now tariffed at 20%. Tech stocks jumped on Monday in response. Trump said during a press conference, “I speak to [Apple chief executive] Tim Cook. I helped Tim Cook recently and that whole business.”
The exempted electronics represent over 20% of US goods imports measured by value, but the reduced levies will have little effect on ocean shipping demand because these cargoes comprise only a sliver of US import volume shipped by sea.
The largest US import category from China by value, smartphones, moves primarily by air, and any phones that do move by sea are insignificant to shipping demand given their small size (it is estimated that 22,000 iPhones could fit in a single twenty-foot container).
Jason Miller, a freight economist and professor at Michigan State University, told Lloyd’s List that the US imported 55,000 tonnes of smartphones by air in 2024, including 45,000 tonnes from China, “and hardly any moved by water”.
Government data compiled by Miller shows that the top cargo categories moving via ocean from China to the US in 2024 (measured by weight) were bikes and bike parts, kitchenware, plastic household items, furniture, lithium ion batteries, exercise equipment, automobile brakes and other parts, textiles and clothing, porcelain fixtures, iron and steel, holiday decorations, fans, appliances and bedding.
Linerlytica wrote on Monday: “Despite moves to de-escalate the tariff war, we estimate that 30-40% of the transpacific container imports are still effectively halted by the tariffs that remain in place, principally affecting carriers with the largest exposure to Chinese exports to the US.”
The carriers with the highest percentage exposure to the China-US trade are Hede, Matson, SeaLead, TS Lines and Cosco, said Linerlytica.
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