Home >> blog >>Will ocean and air freight rates drop after Trump imposes 34% tariffs on China?
In April 2025, Trump imposed a tariff of up to 34% on goods imported from China. Together with the previous 25% tariff, the tariff on most goods exceeded 60%! A-shares fell all the way from the opening on April 7! The number of stocks that hit the limit in the end reached 2,900! Will the sea and air freight costs from China to the United States also plummet?
On April 7, 2025, the global stock market suffered a Black Monday due to the continued market concerns caused by the tariff war. The three major A-share indexes plummeted collectively, and the ChiNext Index fell by more than 12%, setting a record for the largest single-day drop in history. More than 2,900 stocks closed at the limit in the entire market, and the total market value of A-shares evaporated by 7.6 trillion yuan in one day.
"On April 2, Eastern Time, the U.S. government announced that starting May 2, imports from mainland China and Hong Kong will no longer be subject to the "minimum exemption" policy. Goods entering the United States that do not enter through the international postal network will be subject to all applicable tariffs; those entering through the postal system will be subject to one of two tariff schemes (the higher of the two): 30% of the value of the goods or a fixed fee of $25 per piece, which will increase to $50 per piece starting June 1. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) may require postal packages to go through formal entry procedures, at which time all relevant tariffs, taxes and surcharges will be collected."
"On April 2, 2025, local time, U.S. President Trump announced at the White House that "reciprocal tariffs" would be imposed on trading partners, including a 34% reciprocal tariff on China."
"On July 6, 2018, the United States began to impose a 25% tariff on $34 billion worth of Chinese products." The tariffs on most products imported from China by the United States have increased from 8% to about 60% today. Is this import tariff high?
With such a large increase in tariffs, will the volume of goods in the international logistics field decrease? Will the sea and air freight costs from China to the United States be reduced?
After the United States imposes a 34% tariff on Chinese goods, the following impacts may be caused on international logistics from China to the United States:
First of all, the mode of transportation from China to the United States is container shipping FCL, which accounts for more than 68%. Most goods are transported to the United States by ship because it is the cheapest!
The historical data of the shipping cost of a 40 HQ container from a Chinese port such as Shenzhen/Shanghai to the Port of Los Angeles is as follows:
| Year | Sea freight（USD） |
| 2025 | 1500 |
| 2024 | 3000 |
| 2023 | 6000 |
| 2022 | 8000 |
| 2021 | 15000 |
| 2020 | 18000 |
| 2019 | 2000 |
From this table, we can see that the freight of a 40-size container from China to the United States has dropped from a high of nearly 20,000 US dollars to a historical low of 1,500 US dollars. Of course, the shipping cost of 1,500 US dollars per container is not the lowest in history, but the lowest level in the past 6 years. So will the increase in tariffs and the reduction in shipping costs continue to fall?
Let's analyze the shipping capacity between China and the United States! In general, the shipping costs from China to the United States have risen wildly since the epidemic, and the profits are very high. It has attracted many new shipping companies to join, such as: WHL, China Shipping, Matson Shipping, TSL Shipping, SeaLead Shipping, HMM Shipping.
The previous shipping companies were only: MSK, MSC, COSCO, PIL, APL, ONE, EMC, OOCL, ZIM, CSCL, CSAV, CMA, K LINE.
Now that so much shipping capacity has been added, the volume of cargo is expected to decrease due to the increase in tariffs! So after Trump imposed a 34% tariff on China, the shipping cost is expected to drop to 1,000 US dollars per 40-size container in the next year. The shipping cost of a 20-size container from China to the United States will drop below US$800!
LCL by sea After Trump imposed a 34% tariff on China, the impact on the freight of LCL by sea is not expected to be so obvious, because the freight of LCL by sea does not account for a high proportion in the entire logistics process.
After Trump imposed a 34% tariff on China, the air freight cost from China to the United States is expected to drop significantly to less than USD3/KG.
Because the air freight cost was high before, cross-border e-commerce, postal parcels and other goods below $800 are tax-free, leading to the rapid development of many Chinese cross-border e-commerce platforms such as TEMU, TIKTOK, ALIEXPRESS, eBay, Wish... Many cross-border e-commerce buyers opened by Chinese in the United States also became rich overnight!
The air freight capacity from China to the United States has also increased a lot, such as Sichuan Airlines, SF Airlines, YTO Airlines, K4 Airlines, Atlas Airlines, China International Cargo Airlines, China Eastern Airlines, etc. have increased the charter capacity between the United States and China! Most of these forces serve duty-free goods below $800. After Trump cancels this tax exemption, it is expected that the competitive advantage of these goods will disappear, the capacity will be oversupplied, and the air freight cost from China to the United States will return to a reasonable level!
After Trump imposed a 34% tariff on China, the cost of international express delivery is expected to remain stable.
Using Hong Kong DHL international express to send 100 kg of goods from Shenzhen to an ordinary address in the United States, the average express delivery cost is USD6.8/KG. UPS, FedEx, and EMS are not far behind. However, due to the cancellation of the $800 duty-free quota, many customers will no longer use the DDP air parcel service they used to ship. Customers will change their mode of transportation and use international express delivery.
Because the transportation time of international express delivery is much faster than that of international postal parcels. It only takes 3 days to use DHL international express from Guangzhou to the United States door to door, while postal parcels take more than 10 days, and there is no transportation guarantee.
So in the future, more and more people will use DHL, FEDEX, UPS, EMS, and express delivery from China to the United States! The decline in air freight costs will ensure that the express delivery costs from China to the United States will not increase; but the volume of goods will increase. Therefore, the express delivery costs from China to Shenzhen remain stable. It will not fall like international ocean freight and international air freight!
update: 2025-04-07
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