China-US Trade Soars in Race to Hit Trade Truce Window
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A temporary trade truce between the world’s two largest economies has sparked a knee-jerk bounce across China’s ports and factory floors.
In the week beginning May 12, when the U.S. and China agreed to sharply reduce tariffs for 90 days, bookings on freighters headed from China to U.S. shores more than doubled from the prior week to about 228,000 TEUs, or 20-foot equivalent units, data from container-tracking platform Vizion and data provider Dun & Bradstreet shows.
Prices for space on ships across the Pacific into the U.S. also rose, with spot rates from Shanghai to Los Angeles jumping about 16% — the biggest increase for the route this year — to $3,136 per 40-foot equivalent unit for the week ending May 16, according to the Drewry World Container Index. The global composite index also rose the most this year.
And the demand wasn’t just by sea: The number of international air cargo flights rose almost 18%, according to data released by China’s Ministry of Transport.
The surge is likely a wave of front-loading as the trade truce opens a window to avoid steep U.S. tariffs, said Jayendu Krishna, a director at Drewry Maritime Services. It’s also an important buying season for the holidays — it takes about a month for items to arrive stateside and retailers are rapidly running through inventory they’ve had on hand awaiting some trade certainty.
“The current surge in bookings is likely to lead to supply chain disruptions for the next two to three months, unless there is another tariff shock from Mr .Trump,” Krishna said.
READ MORE:Freight Rates Set to Rise on Pacific Shipping Frenzy
Bookings on ships are due to be filled by factories like supply chain manager Chen Lei’s, which makes various types of home appliance products from coffee machines and toasters to irons and humidifiers. The Guangdong-based manufacturer where Chen works counts Royal Philips NV and Walmart Inc. among clients, and has received a flurry of requests from the U.S. to resume production on orders that were put on hold in April.
Walmart ranks No. 1 on theTransport Topics Top 100 list of the largest private carriersin North America.
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“Machines in the factories are working nonstop now,” said Chen, “90 days is too short. Production, shipping — we can’t wait a single minute.”
A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S, a major container liner that’s also one of the largest on the trans-Pacific route, added capacity again after seeing an increase in bookings when the truce was announced, a spokesman said.
Maersk ranks No. 5 on the Transport Topics Top 50 global freight companies list.
Even with the boost in activity from earlier weeks, the overall level of shipments remains in-line with this time last year. That shows many retailers are either not ordering to the same extent, waiting for more certainty, or maybe have already stocked up earlier this year.
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Liners were also bringing unused capacity already on these routes back online, with the share of voided sailings down to 13% as of May 26, compared to 25% a week before, data from HSBC and Flexport show.
In South Korea, the value of exports fell 2.4% in the first 20 days of May from the prior year, with outbound shipments to the U.S. down about 15%. Japanese exports rose only 2% in April — the weakest growth in seven months, data out Wednesday showed.
Written by James Mayger, Katia Dmitrieva and Weilun Soon
