It is ‘complete chaos’ in the container sector. Never before have so many ocean carriers been cancelled globally in a month as for the coming month: 80 container ships have cancelled or changed their routes. That amounts to about 20 per cent of total container capacity. By comparison, during the worst of the corona crisis, the number of cancelled sailings stood at 50, says industry association Evofenedex. In international shipping, the effects of the new US trade policy are increasingly palpable. According to Casper Roerade of Evofenedex, the number of changes to shipping routes is alarming and he does not rule out the possibility of more ships being taken out of service in the coming weeks. ‘The full impact for the shipping industry is yet to be seen,’ Roerade says.
In particular, container ships normally sailing between China and the US are shifting their routes. Trade between China and the US has declined sharply after President Trump recently introduced increasingly higher import duties on products China. Products from the rest of the world have also been additionally taxed since the beginning of April. Trump quickly reduced these levies to 10 per cent for most countries. But the US government's fickle policies are also causing a lot of unrest worldwide.
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Originally Posted by Edwin Asveld, chief executive of TransHeroes.
It is chaos. There are appalling delays at the port of Rotterdam. On global sea freight, it is a mess right now.
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Many exporters are currently watching the cat out of the tree. It is leading to a lot of changes in the sailing schedule of container ships at the moment. This is also noticed by TransHeroes, a logistics company that books containers on cargo ships. Some companies are waiting to send goods. But there are also companies that have been waiting for weeks for stuff they ordered or that are not getting their own products on a boat at the moment. ‘The delays that are occurring now are particularly unpleasant when you are depending on what is in the containers,’ Asveld says.