April saw a return to the underlying downtrend that has been evident now for eight months. In April, inbound boxes at the 10 largest U.S. ports were down 8.6% compared to last April. That is the largest actual monthly decrease in 32 months going back to August 2023 when the 13.9% decline was at the tail end of the decreases from volume gains during the pandemic. The April decrease comes after March’s 1.1% increase and February’s 5.7% decrease. The three-month trailing figures came in at a 4.4% decrease in April, an expansion on March’s 3.3% three-month trailing decrease.
The monthly year over year percent changes in inbound volume to the U.S. since 2019 through April along with a trend line showing the actual trailing three-month averages is detailed in the chart below.
Inbound In-depth
As I emphasized in last month’s report on March volume, I viewed the modest increase then as an anomaly resulting from front-loading directly related to the Supreme Court February ruling that the IEEPA tariffs were illegal. With my analysis of both CAGR rates since 2019 and sequential growth rates to precisely estimate the front-loading impact, I concluded that a reasonable estimate of the underlying trend would show a 6.8% decrease for March when the front-loading effect is excluded. I view the 8.6% actual decrease in April as consistent with and reaffirming that analysis.
Actual April inbound volume was 16.0% above 2019, which translates into a 2.1% CAGR, similar to recent actual CAGR’s excluding the March anomaly. That indicates to me that the actual change in April does not have the anomaly that was in the March number and is consistent with the underlying trend.
While talking about headline numbers, I’ll point out again the difference in the quickly reported but erroneous Descartes figures compared to my accurate figures. Two weeks ago, Descartes reported that inbound container volume to the U.S. in April was down 5.5%, or 3.1 percentage points lower than the actual year over year decrease of 8.6%. That error comes on the heels of Descartes saying that March volume was down 1.1% from last year, a figure that was 2.2 percentage points lower than the actual gain of 1.1% in March. The Descartes March report made no reference to any anomalies in the actual March in sharp contrast with the analysis in my March report. Descartes numbers may come out fast but they come out wrong. Over one six-month period when I did a detailed comparison, it circles around to a standard deviation of some three percentage points each month. Whatever the method or process they use to come out with their numbers, whether it is a faulty algorithm or an AI invention, they are still bad numbers.
Global Perspective
The widening gap between volume trends in North America and the rest of the world continues. North America went from a 2.7 percentage point overperformer at the beginning of 2025 to a 10.1 percentage point underperformer in March, a striking swing of 12.8 percentage points. That three-month metric is down from a 14.6 percentage point peak in January. Volume growth in all other regions remains robust and world trade is moving on. For instance, while North America inbound volume in March alone was down 8.4%, global volume in the rest of the world was down 1.0%. North America’s negative variance of 7.4 percentage points in March was a widening of February’s 6.1 percentage point variance based on the same monthly comparison.
In March, worldwide container volume showed a year-on-year decline of 2.4%, the first decrease in almost three years since the 1.3% decline in July 2023. That weakness was driven by just a 0.4% increase in Far East exports, also the weakest showing since a 1.2% decline in July 2023. Noteworthy declines at major regions were the 8.4% decrease in North America imports and the 25.6% decrease in Mideast/India imports. The latter was a result of the Iran hostilities. My analysis is that directly negated 3.2% of worldwide container volume in March, meaning that it alone was responsible for the overall decline. In March, based on the 1.1% actual increase, U.S. inbound volume growth was ahead of global volume growth but that will prove temporary. When adjusted for the anomalies, it was also still behind. Strength in certain other global markets in March also underscores the continuing underperformance of the U.S. Container imports to Africa (up 9.6%), South/Central America (up 3.6%), Far East (up 3.5%) and Australia (up 3.3%) were all robust while U.S. volume was not. On the export side, there was overperformance with container exports from Africa (up 13.4%), South/Central America (up 3.9%) and Australia (up 1.7%).
As the data shows, world container supply chains have already begun to adapt and reconfigure trading patterns faster than most thought while U.S. volume languishes and declines. The volume gains those regions have represent more growth and less inflation than the U.S. should have had.
These container volume reports not only telegraph future economic activity driven by the law of large numbers, but they will be a particularly useful tool going forward. In a period that is expected to have a number of macro catalysts, actual volume trends provide data to assess the impact of tariffs on both economic activity and growth as well as inflation.
To put into better context the commercial activity that is impacted from changes in container volume, it is useful to know that the average value of goods moving in containers is pegged from studies at $54,493 per TEU. Using that figure, the total value of goods in containers moving in and out of all U.S. ports including the two dozen container ports outside of the Top 10 ports in April was $177.0 billion. That is the equivalent of $2.124 trillion in annualized economic activity.
From being well ahead of the rest of world in container volume growth, the U.S. is now well behind the rest of the world. Worldwide volume growth of negative 2.4% in March underperformed volume growth measures in the U.S. that had inbound volume up 1.1% and total volume up 0.8%. When corrected for the anomaly described earlier, the comparison reverts to U.S. volume being the underperformer.
U.S. inbound volume this April compared to April 2019 was 16.0% higher, which is equivalent to a seven-year CAGR of 2.1%. That growth rate measure was below both the 4.4% in March and the 2.4% in February.
Shifting Port Traffic
April’s overall inbound volume of 1,918,122 TEU’s was sequentially 6.6% below March. That was a sharp contrast with the 3.4% sequential increase last year. That 10.0% variance is broadly consistent with the earlier analysis seeking to quantify the front-loading effect in March and another factual indication of the underlying downtrend in the volume data. These sequential comparisons benefit from recency, but the varying number of days in most months injects a 3-10% volume variance and there are also seasonal differences as you go from one month to another. Both of these facts make direct seasonally unadjusted comparisons not particularly relevant. However, the first of the group of seven tables towards the end of this report compares sequential comparisons to the same year ago sequential comparison. That is a more relevant way to analyze sequential variances that have the benefit of recency with the latest available data.
The 69 months after the beginning of the pandemic effect on container volume began in August 2020 can be thought of as a new era in container shipping. That period first included volume gains from increased consumer spending, then decreases from the rebound of that and more recently underlying volume strength followed by the downtrends evidenced this year. We are now moving into another volatile period that will be overpowered by tariffs pushing volume down. April’s overall inbound volume was 3.0% below that 69-month average. The East/Gulf Coast ports were 6.6% below their 69-month average while the West Coast ports were 0.6% above their 69-month average.
The West Coast ports have outperformed the East/Gulf Coast ports in 22 of the last 33 months. Those 11 months that were the exceptions were a return to the period that saw a streak of 26 straight months where the East/Gulf Coast ports out-performed West Coast ports.
April showed a 7.8 percentage point coastal gap favoring West Coast ports based on an 4.7% decrease at West Coast ports compared to the 12.5% decrease at East/Gulf Coast ports. The April gap was in contrast with East/Gulf Coast ports having a 7.4 percentage point March advantage and was above the West Coast advantage of 6.0 percentage points in February.
The trailing three-month figures give a clearer picture of trends and the recent westward shift abatement over the previous eight months has tempered. In April that measure showed the West Coast ports with an advantage of 2.0 percentage points compared to East/Gulf Coast ports 5.9 percentage point advantage in March and 5.4 percentage point advantage in February. Despite reversing the previous eight months, April was still well below the 25.8 percentage point record West Coast advantage for the three months ending November 2023. Only eleven of the last 33 periods had East/Gulf Coast ports outperforming on this metric. The West Coast advantages go back to September 2023 and East/Gulf Coast ports had the advantage during the prior 29 months.
The 8.6% year over year decrease in total inbound volume in April was a sharp contrast and an 18.2 percentage point swing from the year ago gain of 9.6% in April 2025. The actual trailing three-month inbound numbers showed total inbound volume in April decreasing 4.4%, the eleventh straight negative reading of that metric in 30 months as the 19 months that came before were all positive readings. That metric has generally been in a downward trend since the beginning of 2025. The trailing six-month figure in April was down 5.1% compared to being down 5.0% in March. The trailing 12-month figure for April was down 4.6%, below the 3.2% decline in March and the 2.5% decline in February. That trailing annual metric has been in a consistent downtrend for fourteen straight months.
Ports with the strongest April performance were Los Angeles (up 4.7%), Long Beach (down 7.1%) and Houston (down 8.4%). The ports with the weakest performance were Seattle/Tacoma (down 29.9%), New York (down 15.1%) and Savannah (down 13.2%). While New York’s strong March performance had it moving into the top spot last month, that proved to be a temporary position and this month it moved back to its typical number three position after both Los Angeles and Long Beach.
For the three months ending April, East/Gulf Coast ports decreased 5.4% compared to a 3.4% decrease at West Coast ports. Stronger performers over the last three months were Los Angeles (up 2.9%), Norfolk (up 0.0%) and Houston (down 0.4%). Weaker performers were Seattle/Tacoma (down 22.6%), Charleston (down 12.8%) and Oakland (down 11.8%).
Outbound In-depth
Outbound or export boxes over-performed import boxes from mid-2022 to late 2023, but since then have shown erratic up and down moves that circle in to general flatness over the last year. Total outbound volume was up 0.7% in April. The latest month was a slight improvement compared to the 0.3% increase in March and the 0.5% increase in February. Twenty-five of the last 45 months have shown increases following 14 straight months of decreases. The trailing 12-month figure in April for total outbound volume showed an increase of 0.8% compared to an increase of 0.6% in March and 0.9% in February.
With April outbound volume up 0.7% and inbound volume down 8.6%, there was a 930-basis point directional gap in favor of outbound volume. That is a reversal of March where there was an 80-basis point directional gap in favor of inbound and an expansion of the 620-basis point outbound advantage in February. April was a notable departure from the average 550 basis point gap by which inbound growth has exceeded outbound growth over the last 69 months.
With exports, only 27 of the last 74 months have shown year over year gains, with a 1.3% average monthly decline over the period. While total inbound loads this April were 16.0% above what they were seven years ago during March 2019 for a 2.1% CAGR, total outbound loads were 9.4% less resulting in a negative 1.4% CAGR. That 350-basis point difference in directional growth rates over a seven-year period is a noteworthy divergence in the overall performance of exports compared to imports over the same period. The April metric was below the 560-basis point difference in March but above the 240-basis point difference in February.
Total inbound loads were 2.19 times outbound loads in April, above the 2.14 ratio in March but below the 2.25 ratio in February. The 2.19 times metric in April is a decline from the trailing 12-month average of 2.36 times.
For the three months ending April, East/Gulf Coast outbound port volume decreased 2.3% compared to a 5.0% increase at West Coast ports. Stronger performers over the last three months were Long Beach (up 11.4%), Los Angeles (up 4.4%) and Oakland (up 2.5%). The weaker performers were Savannah (down 8.1%), Seattle/Tacoma (down 2.2%) and Houston (down 2.1%).
The trailing 12-month export volume change at West Coast ports was negative 1.2% in April, the twelfth straight decline after sixteen months of that annual measure being positive. That reading was an improvement from the negative 2.1% in March and the negative 2.9% in February. During the last 87 months, that sixteen-month period just before the 12 months of decline was the only time that the West Coast trailing 12-month metric was positive. Total export volume over the West Coast declined 23.0% between those 12-month periods in a particularly striking comparison of the outbound volume deterioration in that coastal range.
On measures of balance related to inbound versus outbound volume, the East/Gulf Coast ports continue to consistently outperform the West Coast ports. In April, those ports represented 58.6% of exports but only 51.8% of imports.
Pricing
The CTS global pricing index, the definitive measure of overall sector pricing, has come out for March and was at 79, a 3.9% increase from the 76 level in February. The March index was 1.7% above the average 77.7 level in 1Q26 and 4.4% above the average 75.7 level in 4Q25. From its recent monthly peak level of 118 in July 2024, the CTS global pricing index has generally been declining since then. A more comprehensive review of actual global pricing and volume trends will be included in my analysis of the actual 1Q26 results of the container shipping industry that will be issued later this week.
Note that the CTS global pricing index uses actual 2008 rates as the base set to 100 and they are not inflation adjusted. The CTS global pricing index level and trend is the most credible measure of sector pricing and the most relevant pricing index to use in any projection of industry results.
The latest readings on the SCFI index, the most closely followed spot index measure, augment overall pricing insight into the container sector. Pricing in most container lanes involving the U.S. shows trends similar to those in broader measures as the lanes are invariably linked in what is really a single pricing matrix. While there are credibility issues with the various spot pricing indices based on how they are determined and who provides input, they do provide information on the direction and trend of pricing. The SCFI began trending down last December and has generally been in a downtrend. However, in the last few months it has spiked up as pricing has tightened related to the hostilities in the Middle East. All pricing indices include the impact of fuel which has sharply increased since the beginning of those hostilities. The latest SCFI reading of 2218 on May 22 is 48.0% above the 1Q26 average of 1499 and 18.2% above the April average of 1877.
This is an excerpt of the McCown Container Volume Observer, which features an exhaustive deep dive into the facts and figures behind U.S. container shipping volumes, including analysis of monthly trends by port and by direction. The observations and data in the 25-page report include some 20 graphs and tables, providing timely container volume and pricing information. To subscribe to The McCown Report, visit The McCown Report site.
About the author: John D. McCown is an internationally recognized shipping expert with over four decades of experience in the sector. He currently serves as a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Center for Maritime Strategy, the think tank of the Navy League. McCown was the co-founder and former CEO of U.S. flag container carrier Trailer Bridge, Inc. He also focused on the shipping and transportation industries from an investment perspective as the transport sector head at a $20 billion hedge fund.
