News
U.S.-bound container imports grew in number in April, according to data recently issued by S&P Global Market Intelligence.
The firm reported that imports increased 10.3% year on year to 2.78 million TEUs, matching the annual gain percentage in March. On a year-to-date basis through April, they were up 7.9% to 10.93 million TEUs.
S&P Global Market Intelligence explained that “while the impact of U.S. tariffs is likely to slash the volume of trade going into May, the higher-than-expected reciprocal tariffs will not have affected imports early in April,” adding that “the overall rate of growth slowed to 9.1% year-over-year in the last two weeks of April.”
Consumer goods imports, excluding autos, increased 17.5% annually in April, while declining 8.7% over the second half of the month, with consumer electronics and leisure goods among the worst-performing sectors, with the former seeing a downturn over the second half of the month. Capital goods imports only saw 2.9% annual growth, falling to 0.2% over the second half of April, driven by what the firm called an accelerating downturn in electrical equipment shipments, partially due to tariffs on energy storage and solar power systems.
