by Lloyd's List

29 August 2025 (Lloyd's List) - US PRESIDENT Donald Trump is pursuing a “very disjointed, but at the same time, very forceful effort to reconfigure global trade,” said Bjorn Vang Jensen, global head of ocean at EasySpeed International Logistics.

Trump is succeeding. The reconfiguration of global trade is well underway.

How this affects container shipping was addressed during a Hapag-Lloyd webinar on Thursday featuring the carrier’s chief executive, Rolf Habben Jansen; Vang Jensen; and Peter Tirschwell, vice president of maritime and trade at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

More rapid supply chain diversification

One consequence, they said, was that global supply chains will become much more diversified, which will change where vessel capacity is deployed.

“You will see people pursuing all kinds of avenues diversifying the supply chain in terms of locations,” said Vang Jensen. “People are really tariff shopping right now. It’s all about solving for the lowest tariff.

“New sourcing patterns will arise that will have a profound influence on shipping lines as they contemplate where they put their ships.

“We’re seeing a lot of interest lately in countries that you wouldn’t normally see. Jordan, Tanzania, Kenya and Ghana are becoming red hot as potential sourcing origins for the garment industry.

“Vietnam and Cambodia, I think, will be big beneficiaries in the long term,” Vang Jensen said, noting that “there are opportunities there for carriers”.

According to Habben Jansen, “We’re lucky because at least we can move our ships around. We can deploy more ships in Asia, India, Africa or other places depending on where the demand is. I think that’s a big plus. We are better off than other people that have fixed assets.

“I believe that many shippers and many buyers will, over time, diversify their supply chains, because you need to manage risk in a very different way in today’s world compared to how it was in the past.”

That’s good for liner operators, said Habben Jansen, because the positive supply chain diversification effect on vessel demand would offset some of the headwinds on cargo volumes.

“When you look at overall global demand, particularly from the US, that does not look great when you look 12 or 24 months out,” said Habben Jansen. “We can all have a different opinion about how bad it will be, but it does not look great.

“But when people start diversifying their supply chains, that has actually also an effect on shipping volumes. In some cases, you actually get more transport, despite the fact that the overall volume is still the same.”

Concerns over US container demand

The outlook for US shipping demand in 2026 is negative, due to the tariff costs, the rising risk of inflation, and policy uncertainty.

“I think the biggest risk is the uncertainty,” said Habben Jansen. “When people don’t know what the environment is going to look like, most people will decide to do nothing and wait, and to postpone decisions.

“Particularly when it comes to trades to and from the US, that is going to be pretty negative,” Habben Jansen said.

According to Vang Jensen, “What worries me going forward is consumer sentiment in the US, which had been inexplicably flat or rising for most of the year and is now falling.

“That’s a cause for grave concern, because when consumer sentiment starts falling, that’s when people stick their money inside the mattress and don’t upgrade the kitchen that they planned to upgrade and don’t go on the holiday they thought they were going on.”

Habben Jansen agreed. “That’s something we watch very closely. It’s very much about: What does it do psychologically to people? A lot of decisions are postponed. When you see consumer sentiment changing, that’s potentially quite a risk.”

The panellists also warned of container shipping fallout from US inflation.

Tariff costs, which averaged 2.5% at the beginning of the year to around 18.5% currently, “will inevitably be passed on to consumers”, said Tirschwell.

Vang Jensen said, “I’m very worried about inflation growing even stronger in the US, especially with the high pressure the administration is putting on the Fed to lower interest rates.”

More growth outside US trades

The positive story for the global economy – and global shipping demand – is that strength outside of the US could counterbalance fallout in US trades due to Trump’s trade policies.

“I think that there’s going to be more growth in other trades, and less in US-related trades,” said Habben Jansen. “The role of the US in the whole ecosystem is going to become a bit smaller, and that could continue for a long period of time.”

According to Tirschwell, “We’re hearing from some carriers that they’re seeing growth rates in non-US trades that exceed growth in US trades. And what that means is that the US organisations are starting to have to fight with headquarters for capacity to serve the US market.

“I think we’re going to see a greater development of non-US trades,” said Tirschwell, when asked for his predictions on major market changes a year from now.

“If you look at the rest of the world outside the US, there are some trade tensions, but there is nothing like the trade war that is going on involving the US trades.

“So, I think you’ll see higher growth rates [outside the US], with more diversification of sourcing, meaning a lot more cross-trade activity.

“You’re going to see growth in the industry that does not involve the US, with the US – from a container shipping point of view – beginning to take on its own characteristics versus the rest of the world.”