McCown: U.S. Import Surge Driven by Real Demand, Not Frontloading

The top ten US ports reported a 14.2% year-over-year increase in inbound container volume for January 2025, continuing a sixteen-month growth streak that shipping analyst John McCown attributes to genuine economic demand rather than frontloading.

January marked the third consecutive month where growth either accelerated or held steady, following December’s identical 14.2% gain and November’s 14.0% increase. Approximately two-thirds of these sixteen months showed double-digit percentage increases.

McCown directly challenges industry and media narratives suggesting that concerns about labor disruptions or tariff increases have prompted shippers to frontload inventory. “Claims that concerns about labor unrest and tariffs have resulted in front-loading simply are not supported by the actual inventory data,” McCown writes in his latest analysis.

Rather, McCown points to Census Bureau data showing US business inventories actually decreased by $4.5 billion (0.2%) in December to $2,584.3 billion, contradicting frontloading theories. The inventories/sales ratio dropped to 1.35 from the 1.37 ratio maintained over the previous five months.

These trends suggest that the maritime industry is experiencing genuine demand growth rather than artificial tactical shifts, with current volumes comparable to peak pandemic levels, according to McCown.

He calculates that December’s inbound container value reached approximately $128.3 billion, with the inventory decrease representing just 3.5% of inbound loads – while volume increased by 14.2%. “Instead of confirming the anecdotal comments of front-end loading due to concern about possible macro events, the most relevant factual data shows that has not occurred,” he emphasizes.

January’s overall inbound volume reached 2,129,436 TEU, 5.1% higher than December and representing the fourth largest volume in the past 32 months.

Despite the absence of inventory front-loading, Census data confirms that East/Gulf Coast labor concerns continued to significantly influence coastal shipping patterns in January. This redistribution is evident in January’s performance metrics, with West Coast ports experiencing a robust 24.5% increase compared to just 4.1% at East/Gulf Coast ports. This continues a trend where the West Coast has outperformed East/Gulf Coast ports in sixteen of the last eighteen months, reversing a previous 26-month period when East/Gulf Coast ports held the advantage.

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