News
With tariff uncertainty continuing but most holiday merchandise already in stores or warehouses, imports to U.S. major container ports should see their usual end-of-year slowdown in November and December, according to a Global Port Tracker (GPT) report released recently by the National Retail Federation (NRF) and Hackett Associates (HA).
“We’ve spent most of the year worried about the impact of tariffs on both inflation and the supply chain, but the holiday season is here, and mitigation efforts appear to have paid off,” NRF Vice President for Supply Chain and Customs Policy Jonathan Gold said.
HA Founder Ben Hackett said on-again, off-again that the U.S.’ tariff policy has made long-term planning difficult for importers and ocean carriers alike. “These conditions make market forecasting highly uncertain,” Hackett said. “Our trade outlook is for a small decline in imports this year compared with 2024 and a further, larger decline in the first quarter of 2026.”The developments come as NRF is forecasting that 2025 holiday sales will increase between 3.7% and 4.2% compared with 2024 to just over $1 trillion.
The U.S. ports covered by GPT handled 2.1 million TEUs of containers in September, down 9.3% from August and 7.4% year over year. Ports have not yet reported numbers for October, but GPT projects the month at 1.99 million TEUs, down 11.5%. November is forecast at 1.85 million TEUs, down 14.4%, and December is foreseen at 1.75 million TEUs, down 17.9%. December would be the slowest month since 1.62 million TEUs in March 2023.
November and December are traditionally slow, but the large year-over-year declines are partly because imports in late 2024 were elevated by concerns over port strikes. In addition, this year’s tariff-driven frontloading pulled up late-year cargo.
The first half of 2025 totaled 12.53 million TEUs, up 3.7%. The full year is envisaged at 24.9 million TEUs, down 2.3% from 25.5 million TEU in 2024.
January 2026 is estimated at 1.98 million TEUs, down 11.1%; February at 1.85 million TEUs, down 9% and March at 1.79 million TEUs, down 16.7%.
