The latest shipping data just arrived, and it reveals a sharp drop in overall container volumes for May 2025 — they’re now down 9.7% from April.
It’s the first drop after months of growth in these imports, and reflects the impacts of large-scale tariff changes, as well as the removal of the de minimis exemption for China imports.
The same container volumes are also down 7.2% from this time last year, and month-over-month numbers have dropped even further for China imports specifically, falling by 20.8%.
Lowest Monthly Total Since March 2024
By any measure, shipments are down. In fact, total container volumes in May added up to the lowest monthly total since March 2024.
The new stats come from Descartes Systems Group and its Global Shipping Report. The month of May 2025 ended just over a week ago, and its this month that the report focuses on. What’s behind the decrease? Frontloaded cargo and tariff impacts, according to the report.
This just in! View
the top business tech deals for 2025 👨💻
“The drop followed a wave of frontloading in April and reflects a broader adjustment to shifting trade policies, including the expiration of the de minimis exemption and ongoing tariff volatility. Although the U.S. lowered tariffs on goods imported from China to 30% under a 90-day truce effective May 14, most imports that arrived in May were booked under the earlier, higher rates.” -the Global Shipping Report
Higher Monthly Drop Than the 2020 Pandemic
Historically, shipping volumes jump up between April and May, according to Descartes, which notes that 2025 is the first year out of the last seven years to see a month-over-month decline between these two months, with one exception: The 2020 pandemic.
Even in 2020, though, shipping volumes only dropped by 8.2%, a percentage that was just beaten by the 9.7% decrease the nation experienced last month.
Back in April, we covered a prediction from the ITS Logistics’ Port Rail Ramp Index, which stated that cargo operators should plan for a change in May or June. The index called it a “cliff event similar to the impacts felt during the immediate COVID response.”
Now, we have data on May shipments, and they have indeed fallen farther than the pandemic months of April and May.
What’s in the Future?
This news is certainly not unexpected. Higher tariffs mean that vendors are finding shipments to be costlier, and in many cases are pivoting to a new product or strategy entirely. Others are still taking a wait-and-see approach.
Future shipment volumes remain to be seen, but they seem likely to continue the current trend. We’ll keep seeing the ripple effects of the higher tariffs for months to come.
