Featured Headlines:

• So Much for the US Import Apocalypse!
  • US containerized imports hit 2.6 million TEUs in August, up 3.8% from July and up 3.3% from last year.
  • That made August the third-highest import month ever recorded, trailing only May 2022 and July 2025. Apparently, tariffs, geopolitical chaos, and economic uncertainty forgot to tell us Americans to stop buying Labubu dolls and Bluetooth meat thermometers.
  • China wasn’t exactly hiding under the bed either. China-origin imports reached 884,318 TEUs, up 1.3% from July and 1.7% year-over-year.
  • Through August, total U.S. imports are down just 0.4% from 2025 and remain a whopping 21.5% above August 2019 levels.
  • The coastal freight war is nearly a coin flip: the West Coast handled about 52% of major coastal import volume versus 48% for the East and Gulf coasts, although increased transit delays added a little congestion to all that enthusiasm.
  • The real question is what happens next. The charts show that recent summer peaks have had an unfortunate habit of becoming autumn descents. Was August genuine demand, or did tariffs and geopolitical uncertainty pull tomorrow’s cargo into today’s containers?
  • Either way, 2.6 million TEUs is an awfully funny-looking import slowdown!

In an increasingly complicated freight market, how big is just right?

• More Ships, Same Old Problems
  • The global containership orderbook is enormous, but DHL Global Forwarding warns that nominal capacity and usable capacity are increasingly two different animals.
  • Sea-Intelligence estimates 2.3 million TEU, or 6.6% of the global fleet, is currently absorbed by longer transit times, congestion and diversions. DHL believes the true figure may be even higher (for DSV and K+N, they claim!).
  • So, the global fleet can keep growing while individual trades still suffer painfully tight space restrictions exactly where shippers need that space.
• Capacity Has an Address
  • Carriers redeploy vessels toward trades producing the best returns, potentially relieving one market while tightening another.
  • What matters isn’t simply global capacity, but the specific lane, direction, equipment position and inland network.
  • Eleven million TEU on order doesn’t help much when the container you need is in Bali enjoying a cold Bintang!
• Cheap Freight Is Expensive When It Doesn’t Arrive
  • After years of COVID, wars, trade disputes and congestion, (talkative) DHL sees shippers putting greater emphasis on reliability and resilience.
  • Customers are increasingly spreading cargo among multiple carriers and maintaining contingency options rather than simply chasing the lowest rate.
  • As DHL’s Casper Ellerbæk puts it, “a single-carrier strategy can become more hope than strategy.”
• So, Which Forwarder Is “Just Right?”
  • The giants bring enormous buying power, global infrastructure and technology— although sheer size can make rapid pivots more difficult.
  • The boutiques can be wonderfully nimble and attentive, but may lack the carrier leverage, technology or global reach needed when things get ugly.
  • Then there is the middle: enough scale and deep carrier relationships to create options, but enough agility and customer intimacy to actually use them.
• That Matters More than Ever
  • If tomorrow’s forwarding winners need carrier options, local knowledge, good data, contingency plans and rapid decisions, the biggest forwarder is not always the best forwarder.
  • Scale may open a door or two, but agility gets freight through the right door!

• Section 338 has been back in action for less than two months and already has a Canadian hat trick: tariffs, more tariffs and outright import bans.
• On September 8, President Trump issued five proclamations reshuffling the 50% Section 338 tariffs on Canadian goods. Some products joined the roster, ten were waived off the ice and several others are headed for permanent ejection.
• The first set of changes took effect September 15. Newly covered tariff provisions include a bewildering assortment of cheeses, paper products, metal articles, small vehicles, boats, furniture, mattresses, lamps, leather and furs. Nothing unites Canadians and their beds, boats, blue cheese and bedside lamps quite like a 50% tariff.
• Ten tariff lines moved in the opposite direction. Salt, certain Portland cement, chemically pure sugars, several paper goods, refined lead, switchgear assemblies, fishing rod parts and two bulk alcohol provisions are no longer subject to the Section 338 duties.
• The referees make their next call on September 29. At that point, specified Canadian alcoholic beverages; certain whey, molasses and non-alcoholic beer products; and motorcycles with engines larger than 800 cc will be banned from importation into the United States.
• Despite the proclamation’s broader motor-vehicle label, the actual ban does not cover Canadian cars generally. The annex identifies one Harmonized Tariff Schedule provision for large-engine motorcycles. This is why importers read the annex and do not make Customs decisions from the arena scoreboard.
• Covered products imported before September 29 but not yet entered for consumption or withdrawn from warehouse will generally remain subject to the 50% tariff. They may beat the ban at the buzzer, but the duty bill is still waiting in the locker room.
• U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement eligibility will not provide a penalty kill. The White House says Section 338 applies to covered products regardless of USMCA origin—and in addition to any applicable Section 232 tariffs.
• Canada has responded by putting American goods in its own penalty box. Effective September 8, it imposed counter-tariffs of 15%, 25% or 50% on $27.6 billion in U.S. products, including goods across the steel, aluminum, dairy, appliance, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, plastics and electronics sectors.
• Importers on both sides of the border now have product lists, effective dates and overlapping tariff programs moving in several directions at once. Review the actual provisions in the five U.S. proclamations and Canada’s counter-tariff list before the next shipment crosses center ice.
• Canada and the United States keep trading penalties. Somehow, the importer is the one serving the minutes.

• CPSC eFiling is not getting a major makeover. It is merely extending its digital paper trail to one more corner of the import world: international mail.
• Beginning October 22, 2026, mail shipments containing products that require Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) certification must transmit certificate data electronically through the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE).
• The update follows U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) rollout of Entry Type 13, a new electronic informal entry process for qualifying international mail shipments valued at $2,500 or less.
• Previously, CBP did not collect entry data for merchandise arriving through the international postal network. Without an electronic entry, those shipments had no way to transmit a CPSC Partner Government Agency (PGA) Message Set. Very eco-friendly. Slightly less useful for enforcement.
• Entry Type 13 closes that gap by giving international mail shipments an electronic entry capable of carrying CPSC certificate data. No new certificate requirement is being created; an existing requirement is simply gaining a greener delivery method.
• Importers can choose between two shades of eFiling. A Full Message Set transmits all seven required certificate data elements, while a Reference Message Set points to information already stored in the CPSC Product Registry.
• The shipment may be small, but the compliance obligation remains full-sized. If the product requires CPSC certification, its certificate data must be eFiled regardless of value.
• CPSC also reminds the trade that the importer remains responsible for filing the certificate. Depending on the transaction, that may be the owner, purchaser, consignee or authorized Customs broker. Responsibility, unlike paper, cannot be recycled.
• Importers using international mail should identify their regulated products, select a Full or Reference filing process and make sure the necessary data reaches the filing party before October 22. Electronic does not necessarily mean automatic—a lesson nearly every government system eventually teaches us.
• Additional information is available in CPSC’s guidance for mail shipments and CBP’s Entry Type 13 frequently asked questions.
• The paperwork is not disappearing. It is merely becoming environmentally conscious.

• Apparently, Even Shipping Alliances Have Zodiac Problems
  • When Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd launched the Gemini Cooperation in February 2025, the pitch was almost suspiciously sensible: fewer mainline port calls, more hub-and-spoke connections, and better schedule reliability.
  • In Asia, Gemini has actually behaved itself. Direct China calls remain limited to Qingdao, Shanghai, Ningbo and Yantian, with Tanjung Pelepas doing the heavy lifting as the regional hub.
  • Europe, however, has brought out Gemini’s other personality.
  • The alliance began with an average of three North European mainline calls per loop. Today it has four, a 33% increase, as Antwerp, Gothenburg, Aarhus and Southampton have found their way into various rotations.
  • Antwerp was probably inevitable. It is simply too large and too well connected to ignore forever. In true Gemini fashion, the alliance apparently changed its mind after hearing both sides of its own argument.
  • Gothenburg and Aarhus are a little more interesting. Maersk’s APM Terminals owns facilities in both, raising the possibility that Gemini’s devotion to network purity becomes somewhat more adaptable when the family owns the terminal.
  • That follows the original decision to call both Wilhelmshaven and Bremerhaven, despite the ports sitting less than 100 kilometers apart. Why choose one when you’re the Twins?
  • None of this means Gemini isn’t working. Schedule reliability has been a genuine strength. It simply means the original religion of ruthless port-call minimization is encountering that oldest force in container shipping: commercial reality.
  • So hub-and-spoke remains alive and well. Gemini just seems to be doing what Geminis allegedly do best: communicating constantly, keeping its options open, changing plans, and insisting that both personalities were right all along.
  • As a Gemini myself, I find this analysis offensive. The other me completely agrees with it.

• Shaq Wasn’t the Only Diesel Who Could Do Some Damage
  • Shaquille O’Neal was The Diesel. So was Washington football legend John Riggins. And Vin Diesel has somehow made an entire career out of driving cars very fast while saying remarkably little.
  • Unfortunately, trucking’s version of The Diesel is currently putting on an equally impressive performance. AAA’s national average diesel price hit $6.27 per gallon on September 15, up from $5.90 just one week ago and $3.69 a year ago. It is now the highest national diesel average AAA has ever recorded.
  • (Psst, Shaq had two triple doubles in his career; let us pray AAA’s average will top out at doubling!)
  • The Energy Information Administration’s latest weekly survey came in slightly lower at $5.97 per gallon, but that represented a whopping 36.8-cent increase in a single week. More importantly for shippers, the EIA benchmark is commonly used to calculate trucking fuel surcharges.
  • And this particular Diesel has plenty of horsepower. With the exception of four weeks in June and early July, the EIA national average has remained above $5 per gallon since mid-March, leaving little reason to expect much fourth-quarter relief.
  • Large contract carriers generally recover rising fuel costs through established surcharge programs. Smaller carriers playing heavily in the spot market have less protection, meaning every additional dime at the pump squeezes already-thin margins.
  • That creates a nasty little freight-market paradox: higher fuel costs can hurt trucking capacity before stronger freight demand ever arrives. If financially vulnerable carriers exit the market, shippers could face a smaller spot-capacity pool and higher rates even without a traditional freight boom.
  • Shaq’s Diesel dominated the paint. Riggins’ Diesel ran over linebackers. This Diesel just runs over transportation budgets.

Fahgetabout pollution! New Yawk wants its drayage green.

• The Port of New York and New Jersey is putting $45 million behind the effort to electrify port trucking, with most of the money aimed at the two things fleets actually need: electric trucks and somewhere to plug the damn things in.
• The Port Authority and California nonprofit CALSTART are launching two programs this fall targeting zero-emission drayage trucks, terminal tractors and the charging infrastructure required to keep them moving.
• The Clean Truck Incentive Program will provide up to $39 million in point-of-sale vouchers for zero-emission vehicles and related charging equipment. That pairing matters: buying an electric truck isn’t terribly useful if charging it requires a pilgrimage to Poughkeepsie.
• Another $5 million goes to the Green Drayage Accelerator, which will fund as many as five electric-truck charging hubs within 10 miles of the port’s marine terminals.
• The hubs are designed specifically for the short-haul drayage operators shuttling containers among terminals, warehouses and distribution centers, making port trucking one of the more logical places to test large-scale electrification.
• If they can make it there, they’ll make it anywhere. Though in New York, finding five places to park and charge a truck may prove harder than eliminating the emissions.