US imports sink in September, suffer steepest drop since 2020 lockdowns

From FreightWaves. First came the pullback in spot shipping rates from their historic peak. Then came reports of plunging Asian bookings and mass retail order cancellations, with spot rates falling even faster. Now, all of this is finally showing up at America’s ports. According to Descartes, which aggregates U.S. Customs data, inbound volumes to all…

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From FreightWaves.

First came the pullback in spot shipping rates from their historic peak. Then came reports of plunging Asian bookings and mass retail order cancellations, with spot rates falling even faster. Now, all of this is finally showing up at America’s ports.

According to Descartes, which aggregates U.S. Customs data, inbound volumes to all U.S. ports totaled 2,215,731 twenty-foot equivalent units in September. That’s down 11% year on year and 12.4% from August.

Last month’s imports came in below September 2020 levels, albeit still up 9% from September 2019, pre-COVID. Imports this September were down 15.5% versus May, the month inbound volumes hit an all-time high, according to Descartes data.

September’s 313,311-TEU decline versus August was the steepest month-to-month drop recorded by Descartes since the 364,454-TEU plunge in February 2020 versus the month before, back when Chinese authorities first locked down Wuhan.

“We’ve had a pretty significant correction here,” said Chris Jones, executive vice president of industry and services at Descartes Systems Group, in an interview with American Shipper on Monday.

See the complete article online at FreightWaves.

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