Oslo - With no pre-warning, the US Administration and China announced that they had reached an agreement, partly pausing tariffs for 90 days – we say ‘partly’ because the US is still imposing a baseline 30% tariff (down from 145%), cumulative with specific tariffs, (25% on steel and aluminium) and China went down from 125% to 10%.

In the past four weeks, shipping lines have been trying to reduce Transpacific capacity, due to a drop-off in bookings as a direct consequence of the tariffs. Now, with this latest development, the lines need to ramp capacity up quickly . . .