Hapag-Lloyd, a leading shipping container company, said customers have cancelled 30% of orders from China to the US as President Trump’s strict tariffs have caused chaos at ports around the world.
Meanwhile, demand for shipments from Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam has “a significant increase,” Vietnam, the world’s largest German shipping company, told Reuters.
“We believe these bookings are rising significantly. However, as the market is smaller than the Chinese market, the rise in Southeast Asia cannot compensate for cancellations from China,” a Hapag-Lolyd spokesperson told the post.
The country is a popular manufacturing industry that replaces China, a key hub for the production of electronics, toys, clothing and other goods slapped at a rate of 145% in the Trump tariff war. China retaliated with a 125% tax on US imports.
Customers began canceling orders when Trump announced so-called “mutual” tariffs on April 2, when he announced a number of strict fees in many countries, the shipping company told the Post.
The president then put most of these tariffs on hold for 90 days, and introduced a 10% tax when global leaders meet for negotiations.
As trade tensions intensify, Hapag-Lloyd is using smaller vessels in some cases to ship containers to the US, a spokesman told Reuters.
Some US companies may hand over additional costs from taxes to consumers and hike prices, but small businesses have warned that they will not be able to pay their orders later this year.
Without lower rate deals, shoppers can see store shelves fading by summer as businesses shrink and cancel orders, industry experts told the Post.
Hapag-Lloyd, which has a market capitalization of around $27 billion, warned in its 2025 revenue forecast.
“The economic and geopolitical environment remains vulnerable,” CEO Rolf Haben Jansen said in a statement. “In this context, we expect revenues in 2025 to be lower than in 2024.”
At the end of Tuesday, Trump wanted investors and businesses to get a respite, indicating that a fall in tax rates on China could be ongoing.
China’s 145% rate is “very high, not that high… No, it’s not that high. It’s going to drop significantly,” Trump said.
He warned, “If they don’t do a deal, we’ll set up a deal.”
The president also betrayed his threat to fire Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, suggesting that trade tensions in US-China could soon be ejected and could send a rag on Wednesday morning late Tuesday afternoon.
With post wire
