In what is already expected to be an eventful month for ocean carriers as their new vessel-sharing alliances take shape, the global shipping giants now must navigate an uncertain trade environment that is now completely dominated by tariff talk.
Container shipping stocks including Maersk (-3.2 percent), Hapag-Lloyd (-4.8 percent) and ZIM (-5.1 percent) sank Monday morning after President Donald Trump signed an executive order over the weekend to slap 25-percent tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada, as well as stacked an additional 10 percent duties on China-made products.
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However, shares for the ocean carriers rallied throughout Monday and Tuesday as the expected tariffs on Mexico and Canada were put on a one-month pause .
That rally continued into Tuesday morning even as Chinese President Xi Jinping clapped back with 15 percent duties of his own on U.S. coal and liquefied natural gas, and a 10 percent tariff on crude oil, agricultural machinery and large-engine automobiles.
With Trump and Xi are expected to schedule a call later this week in an attempt to smooth things over, the container shipping industry awaits with bated breath. After all, any potential barriers to global trade would be a meaningful hindrance to ocean carriers.
In a blog post on Jan. 20, Simon Heaney, senior manager of container research at Drewry Supply Chain Advisors, said the sector “by design craves predictability and multilateral coordination,” making Trump’s return and the will-he or won’t-he application of the tariffs a major growth hurdle.
The president hasn’t ruled out tariffs on imports from the European Union (E.U.) either, furthering the concerns of container shipping giants that are traversing the trans-Atlantic trade route.
“Generally speaking, Trump’s method creates huge uncertainty in an industry that requires predictability to be efficient,” Heaney told Sourcing Journal.
For now, ocean carriers will be eyeing the U.S.-China relationship the most as the Trump-Xi talks develop. China remains the largest origin country for ocean-going U.S. imports, accounting for 41 percent of total containerized cargo in 2024, according to container shipping analytics firm Linerlytica.
Since 2018, when President Trump established his first round of tariffs during his initial term, total imports into the U.S. out of China have dipped 25 percent to $401.4 billion in 2024, down from $538.5 billion at that time, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Assuming the new China tariffs stick, they would cause significant challenges for carriers relating to new pricing strategies, capacity management and newly implemented service realignments, Heaney said.
“These will result in an acceleration in cargoes diverted away from the direct China-U.S. lane (as happened in 2018), adding volumes to other lanes in Asia,” Heaney said. “Depending on where cargoes relocate there might be insufficient terminal and logistics capacity to handle 1:1 transfers from China.”
Such limited capacity comes as carriers are already dealing with elevated levels of congestion , both at major Chinese ports as well as southeast Asian ports like Singapore, Manila and Colombo. As of Monday, 9 percent of the total global fleet is still locked up at a port, comprising 2.83 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs).
The combined diversion of cargo and overall capacity crunch “could raise freight rates on lanes with limited direct connections with the U.S.,” Heaney said.
Freight rates for cargo entering the U.S. have largely declined since early January after a brief December spike to close the year. That increase was heavily driven by concerns about the Trump-levied tariffs after he was elected, with shippers front-loading their goods into the U.S. ahead of his inauguration, as well as worries of a second East and Gulf Coast port strike that was averted.
Judah Levine, head of research at freight booking marketplace Freightos, told Sourcing Journal in January that Trump’s return to the White House would be “the big driver” in keeping trans-Pacific rates elevated throughout 2025.
But while freight rates are beneficial for ocean carriers, with higher container prices helping boost profits at the firms in mid-2024, a wrench would still be thrown in their operations if the tariffs hamper wider trade.
“Operationally, carriers could experience higher repositioning costs as reducing China-U.S. trade could lead to equipment shortages in some regions and oversupply in others,” said Heaney.
Maersk is set to report its financial results on Wednesday, which could give more insight into how the ocean carrier industry expects the tariffs to impact container shipping operations.
In October, ahead of the U.S. presidential election, Maersk CEO Vincent Clerc downplayed the potential impact of any tariffs on its business, saying that consumer health would have a bigger role than geopolitics.
“Tariffs can be avoided by sourcing from different geographies,” Clerc said. “If the consumer does not buy the stuff that we transport, then there will be need for less transport services.”
