by Lloyd's List

THE ONSET of higher reciprocal tariffs has come and gone, frontloading is over, and US imports are down as expected in August. Yet imports are still very high and volumes are not falling off a cliff despite the historically steep levies.

US imports totalled 2,519,722 teu in August, down 4% month on month (m/m) and up 2% year on year (y/y), Descartes reported on Tuesday.

It is not unusual for US imports to decline by low single digits in August versus July. Excluding years affected by the supply chain crisis, August imports fell m/m in 2024, 2019 and 2018.

Descartes noted that imports in August were the second highest of this year, exceeded only by July’s, and were only 102,743 teu shy of the pandemic-driven monthly record set in May 2022.

Volumes this August were down only 3% and 4%, respectively, versus August 2021 and August 2022, during the Covid boom.

US imports in January-August were up 3% y/y — and 2024 was an exceptionally strong year. The long-term trend, said Descartes, is for “resilient demand despite policy uncertainty”.

US imports from China came in at 869,523 teu in August, down 6% m/m and 11% y/y.

However, import flows from China remain surprisingly robust despite average tariff rates on Chinese goods of around 50%. US imports from China in August were down only 2% versus the full-year average in 2024, prior to US president Donald Trump’s second term.

China’s share of total US imports remains very significant, at 34.5% in August, underscoring the importance of trade negotiations scheduled to continue through mid-November.

September-December forecast raised by 6%

Global Port Tracker, published by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates, estimated on Tuesday that August imports at the 13 US ports it covers fell 3% m/m and 2% y/y.

Global Port Tracker modestly increased its forecast for the remainder of the year.

A month ago, it was projecting imports of 7.08m teu at the ports it covers during September-December. The new forecast is for 7.51m teu, 6% higher.

The biggest revision was for September — previously at 1.83m teu, now at 2.12m teu — an increase of 16%. Global Port Tracker is expecting a more gradual post-peak decline than it did previously.

Even with the upward revisions, September-December import volumes are expected to be down 15% versus the same period in 2024 and 4% versus September-December 2023.

“Tariffs have had a significant effect on trade,” said Hackett Associates founder Ben Hackett. “The trade outlook for the final months of the year is not optimistic.”

According to NRF vice president for supply chain and customs policy Jonathan Gold, “Retailers have stocked up as much as they can ahead of tariff increases, but the uncertainty of US trade policy is making it impossible to make long-term plans that are critical for future business success.”

Supreme Court ruling to impact 2026 import demand

Looking to 2026, the tariff effect on US import demand will hinge, in part, on how the Supreme Court rules on Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977.

IEEPA tariffs were declared illegal on August 29 by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which stayed the ruling to allow for an appeal to the US Supreme Court.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court announced that it has agreed to hear the case and that oral arguments will begin in the first week of November, as requested by the Trump administration.

The Budget Lab at Yale recently released an analysis of how the ruling could affect average tariffs rates in 2026.

It analysed two scenarios: a baseline in which current tariffs remain in place for the long term, and a second in which the Supreme Court rules against the use of IEEPA.

In the baseline case, the average US tariff rate is 17.4%, the highest since 1935. If the Supreme Court rules against the use of IEEPA, the Budget Lab estimated that 71% of tariffs imposed in 2025 would be erased, leading to an average tariff rate of 6.8%, the highest since 1969.

The second scenario is for “illustrative purposes only”, the Budget Lab acknowledged.

The Trump administration has already confirmed that it will move to replace IEEPA tariffs with other levies should the Supreme Court rule against it. The administration would not be able to fully replicate IEEPA tariffs, but the resultant average tariff would be closer to 17.4% than 6.8%.