Shit’s Getting Real

U.S. importers are being notified of an increase in canceled sailings by freight ships out of China as ocean carriers try to balance the pullback in orders resulting from President Trump’s tariffs and the escalation of tensions in the trade war.

A total of 80 blank, or canceled, sailings out of China have been recorded by freight company HLS Group. It wrote in a recent note to clients that with the trade war between China and the U.S. leading to a demand plummet, carriers have started to suspend or adjust transpacific services.
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If each sailing was carrying 8,000 to 10,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units), that would equal a decline in freight traffic of between 640,000-800,000 containers, and lead to decreased crane operations at the ports, lower fees that could be collected, and declines in container pick-ups and transports by trucks, rails, and to warehouses for storage.

Three-quarters of a million freight containers that won't be moving around the country is going to be a hell of a hit to trucking and the railroads. At some point, every one of them gets moved some distance by a truck, whether across town or cross-country. Those trucks won't be burning diesel and those truckers won't be stopping for meals or other services.

That's from the blank sailings we know about. There will be more.