Donald Trump's trade war with Beijing is starting to affect the wider American economy while container port operators and air freight managers report a clear drop in transported goods from China.
Logistics groups have said that container reservations in the United States have fallen strongly since the introduction of 145% price on Chinese imports to the United States.
The port of Los Angeles, the main entrance route for goods from China, expects arrivals planned during the week from May 4, to a third less than a year earlier, while air managers also reported net falls in reservations.
The reservations for shipping containers of 20 standard China in the United States were 45% lower than one year earlier in mid-April, according to the latest available data from the container monitoring service.
John Denton, secretary general of the international chamber of commerce, said that the upheaval in China-US, the trade flows reflected the traders “kicking on the road” while they were waiting to see how speed Washington and Beijing could reach an agreement to lower the prices.
A survey of members of the ICC has conducted in more than 60 countries after the announcement of the “Liberation Day” of April 2 of Trump showed expectations that the trade would be permanently impact, regardless of the result of future negotiations.
The cost of access to the US market would be the highest since the 1930s, Dénton said. Referring to the reference rate for all countries, he declared that there was “almost an acceptance that 10% will be the minimum charge to access the American market, whatever the other uncertainties”.
Washington and Beijing have shown signs to start feeling the effects – both parties announcing some Pricing exemptions This week on important products for their respective savings and Trump predicting that the 145% rate would “drop considerably”. However, China said Friday, it was not in talks with the United States.
While the first expeditions of containers from China to face prices should be completed in the United States in the coming week, freight operators said that supply chains were deployed.
Nathan Strang, director of Freight Ocean at the US Logistics Group Flexport, said companies were waiting to ship goods in anticipation of Washington and Beijing by concluding an agreement to mitigate the samples.
American importers are looking to use stored stocks before importing new China stocks, logistics managers said. They also have actions in endorsed warehouses where stocks can be deductible from rights with taxes paid during withdrawal or diverting it from other neighboring countries such as Canada.
“They are sitting on goods originally, sitting on goods at destination,” said Strang, warning that if an agreement was concluded to reduce prices, shipping prices would then jump strongly.
Hapag-Lloyd, one of the world's largest shipping companies, said Chinese customers have canceled around 30% of its reservations outside China.
Ts Shiping, Ts Lines, the Taiwanese container navigation company in Hong Kong has suspended one of its services from the American West Coast in recent weeks. “The request is not there,” said a person in the group.
The drop in volumes of order has fed on landing in Los Angeles, according to analysts of Sea-Intelligence shipping data, who reported an increase in “ virgin sailors '', where ships planned from China were canceled.
Nearly 400,000 less containers are reserved on the roads of Asia in North America during the four weeks from May 5 as expected – a decrease of 25% compared to the amount provided for the same period in early March, before the prices were imposed.
The port of Los Angeles alone expects 20 virgin navigations in May, representing more than 250,000 containers – against six in April.
This is a sharp drop in this week, when arrivals increased by 56% in annual shift – a sign that importers were loading deliveries of other Southeast Asian manufacturing centers such as Cambodia and Vietnam who benefit from a 90 -day “break” in prices.
Container prices reflected the change of supply chain, according to data from logistics card books, with a 15% increase in the price of a container of 40 feet in Vietnam, compared to a 27% drop in the main channels of the United States.
“The rates of other Asian countries in the United States can continue to climb before the deadline for July prices,” said Judah Levine, research manager at Freightos.
Air volumes have also dropped sharply, according to the US Industry Association, the Airfordarders Association, with its members' reservations from China down approximately 30%.
“Many members have just stopped receiving orders from China,” said executive director Brandon Fried. “This also creates an effect on prices and booking rates while traders reacted to each news of the White House.”
The industry should still be struck by an American decision to close its “minimis” scheme which has enabled the goods assessed at less than $ 800 without a price, an important route for electronic commercial retailers such as Shein and TEMU. Chinese products should lose exemption from May 2.
Lavinia Lau, commercial director of Cathay Pacific of Hong Kong, whose air cargo activities contribute approximately a quarter of his revenues, said that he expected a “softening” of demand between China and the United States due to prices and minimis rule changes.
The freight transfer of Hong Kong Easyway Air Freight said that China's affairs in the United States dropped by around 50% following pricing increases.
The managers of electronic commerce noted the request for freight. Wang Xin, head of the Shenzhen Cross-Border E-Commerce Association, said: “We see significantly less requests for price quotes compared to air freight shipments.”
Even if the storage and reorientation of the supply chain have helped to buffer consumers of net falls in freight volumes, carriers and retailers begin to feel the effects of the slowdown in imports.
Knight-Swift Transportation, based in Arizona, one of the largest American trucking companies, warned against the volumes provided below, citing the uncertainty caused by the pricing threat.
The CEO, Adam Miller said that some of the largest customers in the group “expressed” that the cost of the prices would feed the lower volumes in May.
“There are some who told us that, yes, they canceled orders or they have stopped ordering, especially in China, and we will determine how to adjust their supply chain to avoid cost,” he said.
Retail consultants said the purchasing models reflected the Three successive months to soften consumer confidence indices.
John Shea, director general of Momentum Commerce, who helps consumer companies to sell around $ 7 billion a year on Amazon, warned a potential “double blow” of the price increase and the drop in consumer spending.
“We see evidence that consumers are starting to exchange … while the same prices relaunch,” he said.
Visualization of data by Clara Murray
