Global Container Market Diverges: Tariffs 'Sink' U.S. Trades, While Other Routes Remain Strong

The latest BIMCO report reveals an unprecedented divergence in the container market: U.S.-bound trade lanes are in a steep decline due to tariffs, while routes to other regions continue to see robust growth.

container-ship

Container ship (Photo: Shutterstock/Phaata)

The container shipping industry is experiencing an unprecedented market divergence, with U.S.-bound trade lanes declining significantly while routes to other regions are showing surprising growth. This is the assessment from BIMCO's September 2025 "Container Shipping Market Overview & Outlook" report.

"On the strength of demand in trade lanes not bound for the US, we have increased our ship demand growth forecast for 2025 to 4.5-5.5% while maintaining it at 2.5-3.5% for 2026," said Niels Rasmussen, Chief Shipping Analyst at BIMCO. "We now expect a balanced supply/demand development in 2026 while expecting average market conditions in 2025 to be worse than in 2024.”

The stark contrast between U.S. import volumes and global shipping trends has become increasingly pronounced following the implementation of tariff hikes.

U.S.-Bound Trades in a "Steep Decline"

Import volumes into North America have recorded negative year-on-year growth since April, and BIMCO forecasts a 2% decline for the full year 2025 before a return to growth in 2026.

According to shipping expert John McCown, this drop could rank among the most significant in the industry's six-decade history. August data showed that import container volumes at the ten largest U.S. ports increased by a slight 0.1% year-on-year.

The small increase in August may be due to an exemption for in-transit cargo after the revised reciprocal tariffs were implemented on August 7. “The new tariffs did not apply to containers that were loaded on vessels at their last foreign port of call before August 7 provided they entered the U.S. before October 5,” McCown explained.

The situation could worsen with the potential implementation of the currently paused reciprocal tariffs on Chinese imports in mid-November, which could potentially “lead to a broader decline related to U.S. import containers from China.”

Adding to this is the planned USTR vessel fee targeting ships built in China or operated by Chinese carriers, expected to take effect in mid-October. McCown described this as “pushing container volumes related to U.S. trades into an unprecedented situation,” with potential global ripple effects.

Other Regions Still See Solid Growth

Despite the challenges facing U.S.-bound routes, cargo volume growth to most other regions has proven resilient. BIMCO expects global volumes to grow by 2.5-3.5% in both 2025 and 2026. Asian exports to Sub-Saharan Africa, South & Central America, and Europe & the Mediterranean are growing particularly strongly.

Market Outlook

The forecast for the U.S. market remains bleak. The National Retail Federation (NRF) has revised its 2025 forecast and now expects total import volumes to fall by 3.4%. This implies that “the remaining four months of 2025 will be down 15.7% versus the same four months in 2024.”

On the supply side, BIMCO has increased its fleet growth estimate to 7.3% for 2025 while lowering it to 3.1% for 2026.

Looking forward, Rasmussen predicts: “We expect that market conditions and freight rates could weaken further during the rest of 2025. So far, time charter rates and second-hand ship prices have been remarkably unaffected by the lower freight rates, but we expect that could change starting in the fourth quarter of 2025. As we forecast stable supply/demand growth, we expect that freight rates could stabilise in 2026.”

This divergence represents a fundamental shift in global trade dynamics. As McCown remarked: “The U.S. is a less relevant player in world trade today than it was prior to these various tariff initiatives and will become more so as announced plans are implemented.”

See more: