Maersk looks to fill up corridors in a flash (sale)

Even as the United States and China called timeout on their tariff war, Maersk, the world’s second-largest container line, wants shippers to get back in the game.

The Denmark-based carrier (MAERSK-B.CO) is offering a flash sale with discounts on dozens of inland trade corridors in the United States and Canada through Maersk Spot, the Danish carrier’s on-demand digital booking service aimed at small and medium-size shippers.

The promotional pricing, announced in an email to customers early Wednesday, reflects the unsettled state of trans-Pacific shipping as the supply chain restarts following a chaotic tariff fight.

Maersk’s rates reflect an average discount of 12–16% for a limited time, a spokeswoman said in an email, on select port-to-warehouse high-volume Inland corridors. The rates include $455 for Los Angeles-Long Beach, $375 for Fort Worth, Texas, $430 for Chicago and $571 to Vancouver, Canada, among a long list of other lanes.

Maersk’s promotion also comes after Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka told The Wall Street Journal he doesn’t expect the tariff pause to spur a flood of imports into U.S. gateways, and that import volume at the busiest U.S. container complex in May will finish down 25% from a year ago.

The escalating tariffs that began with President Donald Trump’s Liberation Day on April 2 led to a de facto trade embargo between the trading partners. The effects were immediate, as shipments from China to the U.S. plunged by 35% amid canceled factory orders, and scores of blanked or suspended voyages as container lines redeployed tonnage to other services.

The tariffs also brought trade to a halt in the middle of contract negotiations between shippers and carriers. Trans-Pacific container rates to the U.S. have fallen some 30% from a year ago, and a number of carriers have announced general rate increases and other charges as a way to shore up prices on the trade.

Those charges, announced prior to the tariff pause, range from a high of $3,000 per forty-foot equivalent unit by Cosco, Evergreen, Hapag-Lloyd and HMM, to $2,000 by CMA CGM, Yang Ming and Zim, to $1,000 by the alliance of Ocean Network Express (ONE).

“Carriers are in the habit of preemptively announcing GRIs,” shipping analyst Lars Jensen wrote in a LinkedIn post Tuesday. “If  market conditions are then strong, these might stick, otherwise they go unnoticed.”

This article was updated May 14 to add information from Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka.
This article was updated May 15 to clarify that the flash sale is for port-to-waerehouse inland services.

Find more articles by Stuart Chirls here.

Related coverage:

Pause and effect: Container rates await new demand

Ocean lines welcome tariff pause, but is the supply chain ready?

Less China means more business for Port of Virginia

Maersk: US-China trade war will swing world container demand

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