Tariffs: A set of country-specific tariffs is projected to take effect on August 1^st (pending confirmation via Executive Order/Federal Register notice), unless countries reach a trade agreement with the U.S. before then. It remains to be seen if that August 1^st deadline will get pushed back as it did back in July, but for now that’s the projected effective date.

Some of the expected tariffs include a 50% tariff on Brazil, a 35% tariff on Canada, a 30% tariff on the EU and Mexico, and a 25% tariff on South Korea, ABC News and CNBC reports. So far, the Administration says they’ve made deals with the United Kingdom, Vietnam, Indonesia and Japan, as well as a framework deal with China.

There’s growing discussion that the Trump Administration may roll out industry-specific tariffs to complement the existing country-by-country measures. According to Transport Topics, President Trump announced plans to impose a 50% tariff on copper imports, though no effective date has been provided. In addition, Supply Chain Dive reports that a 93.5% tariff on graphite imports from China is also in the works, with final determinations expected by early December. Similar investigations have been launched into semiconductors and pharmaceuticals, though details – including potential implementation timelines – remain limited.

Capacity:
— Ocean container capacity during the month of July is expected to be a bit flat. According to maritime intelligence provider eeSea, about 175,000 TEUs of container capacity is set to be blanked during the month of July, which amounts to 11% of deployed capacity between Asia and the U.S. West Coast.

According to data and analysis from Drewry, their World Container Index (WCI) from Thursday, July 17^th dropped 2.6% that week. Which, as they report, is the fifth straight week for a decline.

Port Volumes:
— The Port of Rotterdam recently released their first half of 2025 port volume data, of which they saw total throughput decrease by 4.1% but container throughput increasing by 2.7% (7 million TEUs), per their press release. The port also states that they experienced significant congestion in the flow of handling containers.