It’s been a big week for tariff news. Starting last Wednesday, the Trump administration levvied a huge number of the tax hikes, in ranges starting from a baseline 10% for all countries to the eye-watering, just-announced 125% tariff on Chinese imports.
Some of the tariffs have just been paused for a 90-day period of trade talks, but there’s no indication that any of them are actually going away soon, and many of them could easily increase in response to other countries’ retaliatory tariffs.
A week is long enough for a company to formulate a plan in response to these relatively unprecidented take hikes. What are the biggest moves that US corporations and businesses are making in reponse to all this fuss? Let’s run through the top takeaways.
Daily China-to-US Ocean Container Bookings Drop 25%
Ocean shipments of Chinese imports are already down 25% from the same time last year. At least, bookings for those containers are, judging from new data out from SONAR’s Container Atlas, which tracks global container movements by logging bookings.
Granted, this is about the most predicable result of the China-US tariff war Trump has initiated. The total cost of a product, shipping included, has suddenly more than doubled, leading any businesses that can quickly address their orders to cut shipments short.
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Those who anticipated this price hike might have chosen to frontload their cargo shipments in order to pull forward, which was the reason why big international harbors like the Port of Los Angeles have been increasing operations recently: The Port of LA had its second-best February on record this year.
Walmart Plans to Absorb Tariff Hikes
Walmart issued a statement on April 9 stating plans to grow net sales by 3% to 4% in 2025, even after assessing the impact of the tariffs (although Chinese import tariffs admittedly rose later in the day). They’ll keep sales on the rise by, in part, keeping costs low despite the tariff increases.
Economic recessions have worked well for Walmart historically. By keeping costs low, the company might be aiming to rely on their size to survive while they squeeze their competition in order to gain more marketshare.
It’s a big move, but Walmart is currently the largest private carrier in North America by Transport Topics estimates. They have the weight to throw around.
Total Cargo Decline Estimated at 15% for 2025
China-to-US shipments might be down a full 25%, but the entire US shipping industry will likely see a 15% reduction, according to the latest estimates.
More specifically, imports across the second half of 2025 will likely drop 20% over the same time last year, according to Hackett Associates Founder Ben Hackett in a statement covered by DC Velocity. Given shipments earlier in the year were elevated in anticipation of this shift, the total cargo volume across the year will decline an average of 15% at a minimum.
As you might expect from the current whirlwind news cycle, the 90-day pause and the just-revealed additional Chinese import hike happened too recently to be included in these estimates. The adjusted decline may be slightly more.
Dropshippers May Drop China
One reddit commenter sums up the general stance of the dropshipping community now that China tariffs are up to 125%: “As someone who’s been dropshipping from AliExpress to the US for a while, I’m freaking out a bit. Did some quick math: a $10 product now costs $22.50 landed before shipping. Margins are toast unless I jack up prices or find new suppliers.”
Low-ticket China imports may be dropped entirely, although high-ticket items could still be viable. Other dropshippers aren’t stressed at all, though, and instead argue that it’s being blown out of preportion and that shippers will “figure something out.” In another thread, one commenter simply notes that they’ve never shipped to the US in the first place.
