U.S. bookings for container transport from China to the United States spiked almost 300 percent in the wake of the United States and China announcing a series of tariff modification measures aimed at easing trade tensions between them, container-tracking software provider Vizion said on Wednesday.
Average bookings for the seven days ended Wednesday soared 277 percent to 21,530 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) from 5,709 TEUs for the average for the seven days that ended on May 5, said Ben Tracy, the company’s vice president of strategic business development.
U.S. importers slammed the brakes on shipments after April 2, when Trump announced plans to slap 145 percent tariffs on goods made in China. But trade restarted after the United States and China on Monday announced a temporary rollback of reciprocal tariffs.
German container shipping firm Hapag-Lloyd earlier on Wednesday said its bookings were up 50 percent for U.S.-China traffic week on week in the first few days of this week. Rolf Habben Jansen, CEO of Hapag-Lloyd, told Reuters: “I expect that there will be additional volume between China and the U.S. That is what we have already seen in the last few days.”
(With input from Reuters)
