Not the weakest import demand we have ever seen

Chart of the Week:  Import Ocean TEUs Volume Index – USA SONAR: IOTI.USA

Bookings for containers bound for the U.S., as measured by the Inbound Ocean TEUs Volume Index (IOTI), have been extraordinarily weak this fall compared with the previous two years—averaging roughly 11% below 2024 levels since September. It’s true that 2024 was somewhat overheated due to several factors that led shippers to overstock goods, but where does the current year actually stand in the context of the past six years, and what can we glean from it economically and from a domestic transportation perspective?

It’s a positive sign that the IOTI remains well above 2019 levels (orange), averaging more than 30% higher than a year that also featured concerns about escalating U.S.–China tensions.

Tariffs were raised from 10% to 25% on $200 billion of Chinese goods in May 2019, with another round levied in August—though some were rolled back in a later agreement. These actions led to a modest increase in orders but did not spark the kind of panic buying seen in more recent years.

The pandemic arrived in early 2020 (blue), triggering the most extreme surge in container imports in history. Shippers shifted their inventory management practices from “just in time” to “just in case” from mid-2020 through roughly the first half of 2022 (green). As goods consumption cooled, many companies were left with excess inventory to work down.

Companies then reduced their orders below restocking levels for about a year before resuming imports at a relatively robust pace in late 2023. There were no major exogenous shocks to the economy or global shipping until October 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, ultimately forcing vessels to divert away from the Suez Canal.

This diversion significantly constrained maritime capacity and pushed spot rates for 40-foot containers back above $7,000 on the trans-Pacific lane in the summer of 2024—the highest levels since 2022.

The disruptions were severe enough to push some shippers back toward a “just in case” ordering strategy, though nowhere near pandemic-era extremes.

As concerns over the Middle East conflict eased in late 2024, tariffs became the primary driver of import-volume volatility in 2025. Erratic implementations and pauses wreaked havoc on import seasonality, contributing to an unusually early peak in orders in June and July. This was reflected in a mid-year surge in spot rates.

As a result of the early ordering, container import demand has fallen back to levels more consistent with slight inventory reduction rather than restocking. The latest Logistics Managers’ Index inventory reading supports this notion, coming in at 49.5 (a slight contraction) in October.

This suggests shippers are less concerned about insufficient inventory or about being hit with cost-prohibitive tariffs. From a transportation-market standpoint, this dynamic cuts both ways.

The downside is that shippers currently see no compelling reason for demand to increase in the near future—and may even expect a weaker-than-normal holiday season.

The upside is that leaner inventories increase the urgency behind freight movement since there is less buffer. Unexpected increases in demand have a more disruptive impact when inventories are low, introducing more emotion and urgency into supply chains. This environment can cause rates to rise rapidly, much like what occurred during the pandemic.

About the Chart of the Week

The FreightWaves Chart of the Week is a chart selection from SONAR that provides an interesting data point to describe the state of the freight markets. A chart is chosen from thousands of potential charts on SONAR to help participants visualize the freight market in real time. Each week a Market Expert will post a chart, along with commentary, live on the front page. After that, the Chart of the Week will be archived on FreightWaves.com for future reference.

SONAR aggregates data from hundreds of sources, presenting the data in charts and maps and providing commentary on what freight market experts want to know about the industry in real time.

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