By Lisa Baertlein
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -Ocean imports to the United States may have peaked in July after retailers raced to bring in goods from China and elsewhere to avoid potentially hefty tariffs on holiday-related products, logistics executives said on Wednesday.
Containerized imports to the Port of Los Angeles, the nation’s busiest and a bellwether for U.S. trade, jumped 8% to 544,000 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in July from the same month of 2024. The port hit a monthly volume record in July.
“Much of this volume was fueled by importers hustling to bring in cargo ahead of potential tariff hikes later this month and beyond,” Gene Seroka, the port’s executive director, said on Wednesday.
Many importers have already completed their Christmas shopping, said Zachary Rogers, lead author of the Logistics Managers’ Index, a leading U.S. economic indicator.
“Everything is already here for the holiday season,” he said.
President Donald Trump’s tariff policies, particularly short-lived 145% levies on goods from China, have wreaked havoc on U.S. imports as buyers either gorged on or starved themselves of goods to avoid higher import duties.
The United States and China earlier this week extended their tariff truce by another 90 days, easing the uncertainty clouding the retail peak season for stocking stores with holiday goods.
Still, it appears major shippers like Walmart, Target and Home Depot already have departed from the traditional holiday-import pattern that tended to peak from August to October by stocking up early.
August imports thus far appeared stable but still down from August 2024, due to importers’ inventory buildup, Seroka said.
“I don’t expect a flood of cargo, despite all of the trade announcements coming out of Washington.”
(Reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles; Editing by Leslie Adler and Cynthia Osterman)
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