A rush by U.S. retailers to beat new trade measures pushed container volumes at key gateways to near-record levels in July. The Port of Los Angeles, the nation’s busiest, moved 1.0 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) last month, including a record 544,000 TEUs of imports, while data from Descartes Systems show nationwide inbound traffic reaching 2.62 million TEUs, the second-highest monthly tally on record. Port executives and logistics analysts say the surge has already begun to taper. Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka expects volumes to decline in August as importers sit on swollen inventories accumulated before a 30 % tariff increase and other trade deadlines. Third-party voyage tracking also shows China-to-U.S. sailings at a two-month low. Attention is now shifting to a separate Trump administration plan to start charging port fees on Chinese-owned or Chinese-manufactured vessels in October. Carriers are pre-emptively redeploying their fleets, and consultancy Drewry forecasts that ships built in mainland China could represent as little as 5 % of U.S. port calls by the time the fees take effect, down sharply from current levels. Freight markets are responding unevenly. Container-freight futures rose about 1 % for a second day, signaling tighter forward capacity, yet spot benchmarks in Asia continue to soften: the China Containerized Freight Index fell 0.6 % last week and the Shanghai index slipped 2 %. Industry participants warn that the twin forces of weakening U.S. demand and vessel re-routing could add fresh volatility to shipping costs ahead of the holiday season.