Anticipating that President-elect Donald Trump will fulfill his promise of a 25% tariff on all imports from Mexico and Canada and an additional 10% tariff on imports from China, importers are frontloading freight before the tariff wall takes effect in less than two months.
Bloomberg reports that international cargo flights out of the world’s second-largest economy are ramping up to new records in the weeks after the presidential election.
According to the Ministry of Transport data, there were 3,485 international cargo flights in or out of China last week, the most since March 2023—or about the time when China reopened its economy after a few years of lockdowns. Last week was the third consecutive week with more than 3,400 flights.
“The threatened tariffs on Canada and Mexico will motivate US importers to frontload imports and accumulate inventories, regardless of whether the tariffs are implemented,” Barclays analyst Pooja Sriram wrote in a note to clients earlier this week.
Sriram said, “The 25% tariffs could intensify this pull-forward effect, leading to an even stronger surge in imports in late 2024 and early 2025, thereby widening the trade deficit.” […]
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