PPort strike threat helps boost trans-Pacific container rates-1

A late-year freight surge has kept ocean container rates elevated on trans-Pacific routes to the United States.

Routes from Asia to the U.S. West and East coasts showed narrow increases for the week ending Dec. 20, according to shipping data analyst Freightos, and are about 15% higher than at the start of December, on midmonth general rate increases by carriers.

Asia-U.S. West Coast prices increased 4% to $4,452 per forty-foot equivalent unit for the week. Asia-U.S. East Coast prices were up 2% to $5,932 per FEU.

“Rate increases and reports of full vessels this far ahead of Lunar New Year [in China] probably reflect shippers continuing to pull forward volumes ahead of President-elect Trump’s promises of tariff increases next year,” Freightos research chief Judah Levine wrote in a weekly update, “with Trump this week proposing the U.S. should reclaim the Panama Canal in response to growing Chinese influence there.”