Asia-North America air cargo volumes climbed 9.2% in July — the sixth consecutive month of expansion — while the e-commerce freight that once filled European inbound capacity has largely evaporated since the EU scrapped its de minimis exemption on 1 July. Tariffs aren't shrinking airfreight. They're redrawing its map.

Two markets are now moving in opposite directions on the same aircraft. An AI and semiconductor boom out of Northeast Asia, with Taiwan-US lanes capacity-constrained on servers and chip equipment, runs alongside a tariff-sensitive consumer goods segment that surges in the four to six weeks before each deadline and gives it back afterward. China-origin general merchandise, by contrast, is comparatively weak.

"That is not a market waiting to see what happens; it is cargo that has already moved onto different aircraft, on different routes, for different reasons," Kyle Peacock, principal at Peacock Tariff Consulting, said.

What did de minimis removal actually change?

The United States suspended the $800 duty-free exemption for covered shipments from all countries. Shipments that previously qualified now generally require duties, taxes, fees and formal customs entry.

"That directly changes the economics of the huge volume of low-value parcels traditionally transported by air," said Ashley Craig, co-chair of the International Trade Group at Venable LLP. "E-commerce networks are consequently being redesigned. Instead of shipping every low-value order directly from an Asian origin to a U.S. consumer by air, sellers have greater incentives to consolidate shipments, hold inventory closer to consumers, use regional fulfillment centers, or redirect sales toward markets where the landed-cost equation is more favourable."

The EU's small package import charge, which took effect in July, cut shipment volumes into Europe from China and forced carriers to pull capacity. Yet global e-commerce demand is still up year over year, and, as Scott Sangster, general manager for global logistics service providers at Descartes Systems Group, put it, "like water, ecommerce seems to find its way, as we have seen in the North American market."

Why do tariffs spike demand before killing it?

An announced tariff increase puts a short-term premium on speed. Importers front-load by air. Then the duty lands, the higher landed cost suppresses the trade or sourcing shifts to another country — and the same tariff produces a spike followed by a decline or geographic reallocation.

"Tariffs can initially increase air cargo demand before ultimately depressing or redirecting it," Craig said. "This can create tight capacity and higher rates on newly favored lanes even while traditional lanes weaken."

The arithmetic for shippers has got harder. A front-load only pays when the duty avoided exceeds the combined cost of premium transport, warehousing and carrying extra inventory. And when one tariff regime expires only to be replaced by another at broadly comparable levels, the window to capture that advantage narrows.

Peacock drew the sharpest line of the debate: "A known 15 percent tariff is a business problem, while an unknown tariff is a decision-making problem, and only one of those stops orders." A quantifiable duty goes into the landed cost model, gets priced, and the goods still move. But importers who cannot close a landed cost calculation for delivery six months out never place the order — and the freight is never booked in any mode. Airfreight feels that first, because it's the mode you buy once you've already committed to the goods.

Is China manufacturing actually leaving?

Not in the way the headlines suggest. Vietnam, India, Thailand, Malaysia and Mexico are absorbing more assembly, but none can replicate China's concentration of component suppliers, tooling and manufacturing expertise at comparable scale.

"Factory relocation is a three-to-five-year capital decision being made against trade policy with a 150-day horizon, and that mismatch alone explains most of the hesitation," Peacock said. "What has actually moved is final assembly and finishing into Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Mexico, while the components still come out of China."

For air cargo, the nuance matters. Relocation doesn't remove a long-haul leg — it inserts an intra-Asia leg ahead of it, adding border crossings, documentation, customs classifications and transport moves. And the July 301 action, by hitting 60 economies at broadly similar rates, weakened the case for routing through Southeast Asia purely to change origin.

Liz Lowe, Craig's co-chair at Venable, framed the net effect: manufacturing shifts may reduce airfreight on certain traditional routes, but the cargo may still fly — just on a different trade lane. Greater uncertainty can even raise airfreight's value, because companies want the ability to respond fast when conditions change.

What does this change for carriers and forwarders? Repositioning. Capacity has to chase sourcing as it moves, which means tight bellies and firmer rates on newly favoured lanes even as legacy routes soften. Expect the bifurcation to deepen: tariff deadlines will keep manufacturing four-to-six-week demand whipsaws, while AI and semiconductor freight out of Northeast Asia supplies the structural base — until policy, again, moves the map.