LA/LB Strike Deadline Pushed to November 20 as Transpacific Rates Hold Near Peak

Transpacific spot rates are holding at roughly peak levels — $8,200/FEU to the US West Coast and $9,700/FEU to the East Coast — even as ILWU Local 26 pushed its strike deadline at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach back to November 20, buying operators and negotiators another stretch of time. That's the freight market's week in two sentences: demand cooling, prices refusing to follow.

What does the midterm result change for trade?

Republicans lost control of both houses of Congress in last week's US midterms, and the implications for trade run in two directions. Voters rattled by inflation — tariffs and energy prices included — may push the White House to avoid new tariffs and deescalate the war in Iran to bring oil prices down.

The flip side: with legislation harder to pass, President Trump may lean harder on foreign and trade policy, where Congress has less leverage. A lame-duck president with a trade axe is not a calming thought for importers.

There is at least one concrete deescalation. Late last week, Washington and Beijing officially extended the pause on reciprocal port call fees until January 10, matching the extension of the other elements of the interim US-China agreement announced in September. Trump and Xi meet in China next week.

A long, strange peak season

This year's trade war zigzags produced an unusually early and unusually long transpacific peak, keeping US container import volumes elevated since May. The Supreme Court's February invalidation of IEEPA tariffs lowered the effective duty regime on many partners, including China, and anticipation of July increases spurred frontloading.

Then the rally kept going, for reasons fewer people predicted: tariffs that stayed roughly flat past July, IEEPA refunds that handed importers unexpected cash, and consumer spending that declined to decline.

The National Retail Federation's latest ocean import report puts September arrivals at 2.37 million TEU — just below record levels. October is estimated to have eased 5%, with November projected down 14% from the September high. Even so, the year should finish 2.2% ahead of 2025, against earlier expectations of flat or barely positive growth.

Rates: GRIs that weren't

Slowing demand may explain why significant carrier GRIs failed to materialize last week, leaving transpacific prices slightly lower but still near peak. Judah Levine, head of research at Freightos Group, noted that while rates aren't climbing for now, the market remains historically firm.

Asia–Europe tells a similar story. Carriers seem to have abandoned November 1 GRI hopes there too. North Europe rates dipped 5% to $3,400/FEU; the Mediterranean slipped 1% to $4,300/FEU. Context matters: North Europe is up 50% year on year, the Mediterranean up 88%.

LA/LB: a strike postponed, not cancelled

The Local 26 watchmen's extension to November 20 gives terminals and the union more room to avert a walkout. Most holiday merchandise has already landed, but plenty of cargo still needs to move inland — and a serious rail backlog is slowing that progress, which makes any strike scenario more painful than the calendar suggests.

Air freight: the December peak arrived early

China–US air rates climbed 3% to above $8.00/kg last week, reaching a level last year's market only hit in mid-December. China–Europe jumped 11% to $4.87/kg, up 23% year on year. Jet fuel prices are propping up the floor, and data center hardware demand has kept pressure on Far East–North America lanes in particular.

One wrinkle: some observers speculate that Democratic control of Congress could mean tighter AI regulation, slowing data center hardware volumes into the US. Transatlantic air rates, meanwhile, climbed 33% in a month to $2.90/kg as winter schedule cuts, possible freighter shifts to busier lanes, and peak season demand all squeezed capacity at once.

Watch the November 20 deadline and the Trump–Xi meeting. Between a possible port strike and a trade truce on a timer, December's rate trajectory hangs on both.