The 90-day rush to get goods out of China

Mint

25-05-2025

Adam Leeb is rushing to ship $700,000 of electronic typewriters from China while the trade truce holds.
After forking out $23,000 for tariffs in March when President Trump hit Chinese goods with a new 20% levy, Leeb, a Detroit-based business owner, decided to pause shipments altogether when the administration then pushed tariffs to an eye-watering 145%.
Now that a 90-day truce agreed between Washington and Beijing this month has brought that down to 30%, Leeb's company, Astrohaus, which makes typewriters, keyboards and other tools for writers, is taking the opportunity to restock.
'I'm assuming this is probably the best-case scenario for a while,' Leeb said.
Sky-high tariffs pummeled U.S.-China trade and now the cease-fire is causing a snapback. Firms across the U.S. are racing to rebook canceled orders and find space on containerships to get products out of China and bring them stateside before the 90-day window closes in August.
In the week beginning May 12, when the trade truce was announced, bookings for containers to the U.S. from China more than doubled compared with the week before as the tariff rollback unleashed a wave of pent-up demand. Bookings surged to the equivalent of around 2.2 million 20-foot boxes, a level not seen in more than a year, according to data from Vizion, a container-tracking software company, and data provider Dun & Bradstreet.
Executives, logistics specialists and analysts are cautious about how big the rebound will get. They say there is still too much uncertainty over tariff policy and the health of the U.S.'s consumer-driven economy to fuel a splurge in new orders. Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, said earlier this month that he doesn't anticipate a big surge in imports after the rollback. Vizion's data show container bookings last week fell back to the equivalent of around 1.4 million 20-foot containers.
Nonetheless, many Chinese manufacturers are welcoming any bump in activity after the high tariffs froze orders and halted production. Lisa Wang, a salesperson at a textile manufacturer in China's Zhejiang province, said the 90-day tariff pause has been a huge help to her company. The company has been able to ship out about a dozen containers of previously delayed orders, mostly mattress protectors and pillows. Clients are also placing some new orders.
'Because we don't know what the policy will be like after 90 days, we are rushing to ship what we can now,' she said.
Shipping executives in Asia say one headache for importers is there aren't enough ships available to move goods to the U.S. right away. Carriers diverted some of the vessels that would usually ship goods to the U.S. West Coast from China to other busy routes when tariffs slammed U.S.-China trade. Some carriers replaced their biggest containerships with smaller vessels, while others canceled some scheduled sailings altogether, shipping executives say.
Now, freight rates are picking up as importers compete for scarce space as carriers rush to bring ships back. The Shanghai Shipping Exchange's index of container prices to ship goods from Shanghai jumped 10% in the week beginning May 12, compared with the week before.
'The next 90 days will be quite chaotic,' said a senior logistics executive in Asia, who said it would take weeks to return rerouted vessels.
But for many industries, 90 days just isn't long enough to get products ordered, manufactured and shipped across the Pacific.
Vincent Ambrose, chief commercial officer of FranklinWH Energy Storage, which makes home energy-storage systems in California and Shenzhen, China, said the 90-day reprieve on tariffs isn't long enough to rush in extra stock, as manufacturing and delivery typically takes about 12 weeks. Even if he could, he said he can't compete with the likes of Amazon, Apple and Walmart for scarce space on U.S.-bound containerships.
'There's really no opportunity to rush a bunch of products here,' he said.
Industry executives also say that a 30% tariff is still high enough to pinch trade, albeit not as severely as a 145% levy. Some products from China are subject to tariffs higher than the baseline 30% because of prior duties, making other countries more attractive for manufacturing still.
'Yes, there is a reprieve. Does that suddenly result in masses of volume? I honestly doubt it,' said Niels Rasmussen, chief shipping analyst at BIMCO, an international shipping association.
Godfrey Chan, who started his business as a paper-goods manufacturer in China more than 30 years ago before opening a factory in northern Vietnam in 2023, said the trade truce hasn't sparked a rush back to China.
Tariffs on the products he makes—which include paper bags with flowers, hearts and colorful designs for Christmas and birthdays—would total 55% if they were produced in China, compared with 10% currently on Vietnamese goods. His Vietnamese factory, Max Fortune VN Paper Products, has been slammed with orders from customers hoping to get products as soon as possible, while tariffs on Vietnamese goods are much lower than those on Chinese imports.
'You can easily see the difference,' Chan said.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration placed tariffs of 46% on Vietnamese imports, but suspended them for 90 days, pending trade talks.
Leeb, the typewriter maker, is keeping another order with his Chinese manufacturers on hold that was previously scheduled for production in August. He is worried about buying too much inventory and running short on cash if tariffs return to higher levels after the pause ends.
He tried to negotiate lower prices with his Chinese manufacturers to reduce the burden of tariffs, but didn't manage to get price cuts because the factories are operating on low profit margins. Astrohaus has already raised prices up to 10% on certain products to deal with the tariff increase and is giving priority to presale orders.
Leeb recently toured factories in Vietnam and Indonesia to explore moving some production outside of China for the first time. 'I have to take it seriously now,' he said.
Write to Hannah Miao at [e-mail] and Jason Douglas at [e-mail]