Some of the last cargo ships carrying Chinese goods without crippling tariffs are currently drifting into US ports. Come next week, though, that will change.
Cargo on ships from China loaded after April 9 will carry with them the 145% tariff President Donald Trump slapped on goods from that nation last month. Next week, those goods will arrive, but there will be fewer ships at sea and they will be carrying less cargo. For many importers, it is too expensive to do business with China.
Yet China is still one of America’s most important trading partners. It’s where we get most of our clothes, footwear, electronics and microchips, which power appliances, thermostats and anything else that beeps.
Businesses are making a difficult choice: Continue selling products from China at more than double their previous prices or stop selling those products altogether. For consumers, that means some products will be hard to find or may be too expensive to buy.
“Starting next week is when we begin to see the arrivals off of that (tariff) announcement on April 2,” said Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, where nearly half of the business comes from China. “Cargo coming into Los Angeles will be down 35% compared for a year ago.”
Imports into the United States during the second half of 2025 are expected to fall at least 20% year over year, according to the National Retail Federation. The decline from China will be even starker: JP Morgan expects a 75% to 80% drop in imports from there.
“If not easily replaced by imports from other countries, a collapse of this magnitude would not only sharply boost prices but also significantly disrupt supply chains,” JP Morgan detailed in its report.
That means less work, higher prices on shelves and fewer choices for consumers. Seroka says the countdown has already begun.
“Many major retailers have told us they have about a six- to eight-week supply of inventory in their systems now,” Seroka said. “United States manufacturers and consumers alike will find difficult decisions in the weeks and months to come if policies don’t change.”
Idle ships, empty ports
At the Port of Shanghai in China, the biggest cargo ships are sitting idle. Shipping companies have begun using smaller ships to move cargo as demand softens. Even so, sailings from China to the US fell 60% in April, according to Flexport, a logistics and freight forwarding broker.
“The companies that operate the ships, they canceled a lot of sailings. They said, ‘hey, we’re not going to sail this ship half full. We’re going to leave it here,’” said Ryan Peterson, the CEO of Flexport. “There’s a lot of ships just sitting there off the coast of China, waiting and expecting a deal.”
In March, the Port of New York and New Jersey became the busiest port in the country as retailers frontloaded cargo before tariffs hit. But this month, volume is expected to drop off, the port said.
Twenty-five percent of cargo that comes into the East Coast port arrives from China. But the port says more goods have been coming from Vietnam, Malaysia and Southeast Asia as retailers try to shift production to avoid tariffs from China.
Higher prices on store shelves coming in weeks
Once the cargo hits US ports, the goods take as little as a few weeks to hit store shelves. And when the current inventory runs out, more expensive tariffed items will make their way onto shelves.
“There’s a lot of concern. Right now (retailers) are in the process of trying to figure out their back-to-school and Christmas orders, and how and when they’re going to place those,” said Jonathan Gold, vice president of supply chain and customs policy at the National Retail Federation.
And while the larger retailers can stockpile more inventory, smaller businesses don’t have that luxury.
“Especially for small retailers who don’t have the ability to absorb any of the tariff impact, they’re trying to figure out what their next steps are,” Gold added.
Americans rely on China for thousands of products, everything from flat screen TVs to baby strollers. US businesses import more toys, apparel and footwear from China than any other country, according the United States International Trade Commission.
Forty-five percent of supply chain leaders expect they’ll pass the higher cost from tariffs down to their customers, according to a new survey by Gartner, a corporate research firm.
Seroka doesn’t see empty shelves coming – but he does see less selection.
“So if you’re looking for a certain type of pants, you may find all kinds of pants, but not the type you want. And the type you want….are going to be priced up,” said Seroka.
But Flexport’s Peterson is less optimistic.
“If this goes on for a few more weeks, (retailers will) sell through that inventory and by the summertime, you’ll have shortages and empty shelves,” he said.
Less cargo means less work
With fewer cargo ships expected at US ports, local economies will suffer immediately, Seroka said.
Business from China accounts for 45% of the Port of Los Angeles’s portfolio, which is the most significant share of any US port. Without that volume, there will be less demand for workers.
“I don’t see mass layoffs at the port, but I do see that a trucker who’s hauling four or five containers today likely will be hauling two or three after next week,” said Seroka. “And the dock worker, who’s been getting overtime and double shifts likely works less than a full work week because there are fewer containers coming in. Same with the warehousing people.”
The American Trucking Associations has been calling on President Trump to make deals with key trading partners including Canada, Mexico and China to protect trucking jobs.
“The longer tariffs last, the greater the pain for truckers as well as the families and businesses we serve,” said Chris Spear, president and CEO of American Trucking Associations last month. “Not only will tariffs reduce cross-border freight, but they will also increase operational costs. The price tag of a new truck could rise by up to $35,000, amounting to a $2 billion annual tax and putting new equipment out of reach for small carriers.”
Since the supply chain crisis during the pandemic, retailers have worked to shift production away from China to Vietnam and other Asian countries with manufacturing capacity. But Gold says the imports from those other countries aren’t enough to replace the drop in cargo from China.
“It takes time, months if not years, to establish these new relationships. To make sure that the new suppliers…have got the capacity, they’ve got skilled workforce, they’ve got the right infrastructure. All the testing requirements that need to be done for products coming to the US, especially for children’s products,” said Gold. “It’s not something that can happen overnight.”
Bd-Pratidin English/ARK
