Chinese port volume drops by 9.7% as Trump tariffs hammer exports

Over the course of April 7-13, cargo traffic dropped by 9.7 percent to 244 million tons, according to the Wall Street Journal. The week prior, when President Donald Trump implemented his reciprocal tariffs, there was only a drop of 0.88 percent.

Container throughput dropped by 6.1 percent, the Journal reported, reversing an increase of 1.9 percent the week prior. The outlet reports that there has been a steady increase in port volumes since January 2025, and the last couple weeks have seen that reverse.

Trump first implemented a 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods earlier this year, with an additional 10 percent being added in March, because the president has been wanting China to stop producing precursors for fentanyl, which then makes it way into the United States. He then added a 125 percent tariff on top of the 20 percent in early April, making the total tariff rate 145 percent on Chinese imports to the US. The rates are lower, however, with electronics such as laptops and smartphones, after the president announced an exemption for such goods for the batch of reciprocal tariffs. The electronics being shipped out of China to the US are still subject to the 20 percent tariff implemented earlier.

The week ending on April 11 saw an 18 percent drop in week-over-week shipping rates on the United States' west coast and a 10.8 percent decline in the east coast rates. The tariffs appear to be a way to isolate China from markets as the president has hammered the nation with higher tariffs as he has also implemented a 90-day pause for reciprocal tariffs that were imposed on many other nations around the world, which were announced on April 2.

At the same time, China has retaliated with its own tariffs on America-made goods and has also halted shipments of rare earth metals and magnets out of the country. These materials, in which China has a large market share, are key for building defense technology, automobiles, as well as high-tech computers and computer chips.