Misdeclared shipments are causing delays at US borders, with full truckloads being turned away if just one item is non-compliant, Canadian shipping company ChitChats warned this week.
“As you know, China-origin goods have been excluded from de minimis entry into the United States. Our border crossings on 2 May and 3 May were denied due to some shipments being misdeclared, but were in fact of Chinese origin,” said ChitChats.
It said any misdeclared shipments discovered during a US Customs inspection would result in the truck being turned around – taking with it any compliant shipments on board.
“US CBP is thoroughly checking parcels for verification of country of origin, immediately refusing our entire truck upon discovery of a single misdeclared or ambiguous country of origin. Shipments crossing at the New York state border were refused again, and we are awaiting the status of the shipments crossing in Washington.
“We’re actively identifying and removing misdeclared packages from our trucks so we can promptly schedule an additional border crossing for compliant goods,” it added.
ChitChats said evading tariffs or de minimis charges was a “serious offence” and penalties would be issued if a shipment’s “country of origin, value, or any other detail intended to evade tariffs” had been altered.
The firm’s own measures could include a C$1,000 fee, disposal of the misdeclared shipment and termination of the client’s ChitChats account, and it warned that CBP would likely take its own measures as well.
“CBP will retain your information, making future attempts to circumvent tariffs highly likely to fail, and can impose civil penalties up to $50,000 and bar you from shipping to the US, regardless of carrier or method,” it warned.
It was reported by Criptopolitan that some Chinese social media sites were displaying adverts that promised to lower tariffs by sending goods to another Asian country, from where they wouldl leave with a fresh certificate of origin, allowing them to clear US customs at a lower duty rate.
But US trade rules state that a shipment must undergo “substantial transformation” — processing that adds real value — before it can legally claim a new national origin.
“One post on lifestyle app Xiaohongshu urged shippers to ‘transit Malaysia to ‘transform’ into South-east Asian goods’, and another advised: ‘Wash the origin in Malaysia for smooth customs clearance,” read the Criptopolitan article.
While “origin washing” is a main tactic, the site also revealed that some shippers were mixing expensive items with cheaper goods in a consignment and declaring an average price, so the duty bill is lower.
However, Malaysia’s Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry (MITI) announced on Monday that from 6 May it would be the sole issuer of all non-preferential certificates of origin (NPCOs) for shipments to the US, “to address the issue of possible transhipment from certain countries to the US market through Malaysia’s entry and exit points”.
And it added:”Issuance of NPCOs to the US market by business councils, chambers, or associations appointed by MITI will cease immediately. MITI will enhance audits on NPCO applicants, investigate and take the necessary action in collaboration with the Royal Malaysian Customs Department to curb any transhipment offences to the US.”
The Board of Directors of the Bilbao Port Authority has awarded approximately €50 million (US$57 million) for the construction of new electrical infrastructure that will allow ships at the Port of Bilbao to connect directly to the power grid.
The contract has been granted to a joint venture comprising Sampol Ingeniería y Obras, Comsa Instalaciones y Sistemas Industriales, and Montajes Eléctricos San Ignacio.
This initiative will enable vessels to shut down their auxiliary engines upon docking, significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions, noise, and vibrations-contributing to both the energy transition and the decarbonisation of maritime transport.
The project represents the second and most ambitious phase of the port's electrification strategy. It focuses on Docks A1, A2, A6, AZ3, and Getxo 2 and 3, which serve container terminals, ferries, ro-pax and ro-ro traffic, and cruise ships.
Bangladesh’s port of Chittagong’s recently inaugurated Patenga Container Terminal (PCT) is ramping up its operations allowing carriers to explore fresh options for serving Bangladesh.
The terminal is currently serving the 2,750 teu Maersk Chattogram and for the first time handling export, import, and empty containers simultaneously.
Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) completed construction of PCT in June 2022 and signed a deal with the Saudi operator Red Sea Gateway Terminal (RSGT) for a 20-year operating concession in December 2023.
PCT subsequently started commercial operations in June 2024 solely handling export containers but following the installation of a container scanner to check imported goods, Bangladesh Customs authority deployed officials to conduct customs procedure and it began to service imports.
According to Omar Faruk, spokesperson for Chittagong Port Authority, PCT had handled two import container laden vessels in February and March on a trial basis.
Meanwhile, the arrival of the Maersk Chattogram could also indicate that Maersk is looking to consolidate more of its Chittagong services at PCT.
Meanwhile, the Maersk Chattogram is deployed on Maersk’s South China-Bangladesh IA7 service that has a port rotation of Shantou-Hong-Kong-Nansha-Yantian-Tanjung Pelepas-Port Klang-Chittagong, and its usual terminal in the Bangladeshi gateway is Chittagong Container Terminal.
The service deploys five vessels of 2,800 teu capacity.
“We will increase the frequency of vessels in the terminal,” an RSGT official told.
It is not the only carrier apparently redesigning its network out of Bangladesh, with German line Tailwinds Shipping, owned by supermarket giant Lidl, replacing a call at Colombo on its Asia-Europe PAX service with a call at the Malaysian transhipment hub of Port Klang.
The Colombo call had linked up with Tailwinds’ TEX service that called Chittagong-Colombo on a fortnightly roundtrip deploying the 1,800 teu Nordtiger.
Henceforth that transhipment link will take place at Port Klang.
“We always watch the shipping market in Asia closely – it is for operational reasons that we have adjusted the schedules of our PAX and TEX services,” a Tailwinds spokesperson told.
The hefty $81m in fines imposed by the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) on 23 liner operators is expected to confirmed, after the country’s Supreme Court ruled this week that the Fair Trade Act does apply to collusion on fixing freight rates.
In January 2022, 23 liner operators, including 14 from South Korea, and others including Evergreen, Cosco, Maersk Sealand, Yang Ming, HMM and SM Line, were taken to task after timber traders complained about their simultaneous raising of freight rates between 2003 and 2018. The investigation took three years.
During the KFTC probe, the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries (MOF) moved to exempt such joint action from the Fair Trade Act. However, the exemption came too late, and the KFTC said it could not be retroactive. The subsequent fines brought backlash from the MOF, Korea Shipowners’ Association and Chinese government.
All the liner operators and feeder trade association Korea Near Sea Freight Conference filed individual lawsuits to challenge the legality of the penalty.
They argued that Article 29 of the Shipping Act explicitly permitted joint actions, thereby excluding the application of Article 58 of the Fair Trade Act. They also claimed that the authority to regulate such joint actions lay with the Minister of Oceans and Fisheries, not the KFTC.
However, KFTC lawyer Kim Seol-I argued” “Collusion should only occur to the extent that residual competition is protected. The purpose of Article 29 can only be upheld if procedures such as prior consultation with shipper associations and subsequent monitoring by the MOF are conducted to ensure that competition is not unduly restricted.”
The freight rates were fixed without discussing with shipper groups and the MOF, the lawyer claimed.
The Supreme Court judges agreed with the KFTC’s position, and dismissed the suits brought by HMM, KMTC Line, Pan Ocean and Heung-A Line. The suits filed by the other 19 shipping lines and Korea Near Sea Freight Conference are pending in the Seoul High Court, which stayed these proceedings, pending the Supreme Court ruling.
The high court is npw expected to also rule in favour of KFTC.
Mexican ports are in expansion mode. If the tariff offensive by its northern neighbour raised questions over future trade flows with the US, it does not appear to impact ambitions for further expansion, both in the private and public sectors.
At Veracruz, the nation’s top Atlantic gateway, CICE Group opened the first phase of a new terminal for containers and mixed cargo in the port’s north area. A little over 22 ha, it includes a dock of 550 metres, a 500,000 teu-capacity container yard, zones for reefers and hazmat shipments, and an intermodal yard with 1,970 metres of rail.
According to CICE, a provider of port and logistics services, the development was finished in the “probably record time” of little over one year. Work on the second and final development phase is set to begin this quarter.
Veracruz handled 279,937 teu in the first quarter, a decline of 12.2%.
CICE has a presence at other Mexican ports, notably Tampico, where it operates a mixed cargo terminal. It also runs logistics parks in Veracruz, Monterrey and the Mexican capital, and operates a ground transport division. Management declared at the opening of the new facility in Veracruz that it intends to expand in the country, both at ports and in the interior.
At Lazaro Cardenas, Mexico’s second-ranked Pacific gateway, behind Manzanillo, Hutchison Ports is now in the third and final phase of the expansion of its facility, which aims to add 28 ha of operating space and expand the dock by 345 metres to 1,278 metres and the facility’s surface area to 104 ha.
Hutchison’s volume at the port reached 1.5m teu last year, more than 20% higher than its 2023 throughput.
Rival APM Terminals deployed 14 new hybrid shuttle carriers at its Lazaro Cardenas facility at the end of last year, each with a cargo capacity of 50 tons, a $14m investment to optimise operations, improve cargo flow and reduce wait times for truckers.
Meanwhile, more funds may well be headed to Mexico’s logistics and transport arena. The government is looking to funnel some money into the marine transport sector, with funds from the Mexico Plan, announced in January, a stimulus package of up to $1.53bn, a fiscal tap that will be open until 30 September, 2030.
According to one report, projects that require the acquisition of machinery, equipment, and ships will be prioritised, with deductions of up to 73%. There is also going to be a 25% deduction on spend on technological and scientific initiatives.
Jose Manuel Urreta Ortega, national president of the Mexican Chamber of the Marine Transport Industry, welcomed the government decree as a watershed for the national marine industry and called the financing plan an unprecedented fiscal instrument in its scope and focus on naval construction and port operations.
Container freight spot rates maintained their downward trajectory this week, as tariff uncertainty continued to plague the transpacific market and demand elsewhere failed to match supply.
However, the rising number of blanked sailings appears to have at least limited the weekly losses to single-digit declines.
Liner analyst John McCown noted in his monthly analysis this week that “the very early signs point to the industry having already blanked 81 sailings for April in the transpacific tradelane, well above the 51 sailings blanked during the monthly height of the pandemic”.
This week’s World Container Index (WCI) from Drewry saw its Shanghai-Los Anglese leg shed 2%, to finish the week at $2,617 per 40ft, while the Shanghai-New York routes lost 3%, to end at $3,611 per 40ft.
On both trades, spot rates have now fallen for two consecutive weeks, after a fortnight of rising pricing at the beginning of April, which suggested that turn-of-the-month general rate increases (GRIs) had stuck.
However, it also transpires that transpacific eastbound volumes were strong in March, with inbound shipments at the 10 largest US container ports up 11.2% year on year, according to data published by Mr McCown.
But he warned that the twin threats of trade tariffs and the US Trade Representative’s proposed port call fees on Chinese-built ships and Chinese carriers could send this growth into reverse.
“Growth in 2025 will be well off the 2024 pace. In fact, if the tariffs and USTR ship fees in place now continue, my view is that it is almost certain there will be a double-digit percent reduction in annual volume for all of 2025, compared with 2024,” he said.
On the Asia-Europe trades, the WCI showed a 1% week-on-week decline on its Shanghai-Rotterdam leg, to finish the week at $2,312 per 40ft, while its Shanghai-Genoa leg was unchanged, at $3,012 per 40ft.
Looking ahead, today’s Shanghai Containerised Freight Index (SCFI), which records rates quoted this week and often gives an indication of pricing the following week, shows spot rates on transpacific routes to the US west and east coast remaining flat, while Asia-Europe trades could see further slight declines.
The SCFI’s Shanghai-North Europe base port leg this week declined 4% week on week, to finish today at $2,520 per 40ft, while the Shanghai-Mediterranean base port route was down 1.5%, to $4,258 per 40ft.
Meanwhile, transatlantic spot rates continued to hold steady, as they have for the best part of a month, with the WCI’s Rotterdam-New York leg seeing a 1% decline, to $2,109 per 40ft, while the backhaul route was up 1%, to $825 per 40ft.
The relative strength of the trade has seen carriers announce the introduction of peak season surcharges (PSS) next month, possibly in anticipation of tariff-related front-loading.
Hapag-Lloyd today said it would apply a PSS of $600 per teu and $900 per 40ft on shipments to Mexico and Canada from 15 May, and on shipments to the US from 25 May.
Similarly, CMA CGM is set to introduce a PSS of $400 per teu and $800 per 40ft on all North Europe to North America shipments from 15 May.
Whether any of these price increases stick will be a good indication of how demand holds up over the next four weeks.
Forwarders are warning shippers not to under-declare the value of goods they export to the US as they look to mitigate the cost of tariffs.
Lee Griffiths, MD of NNR, said all employees were told to “completely avoid any breach of the law – follow culture before profit”, stressing that any such requests made to the company would be “met with a flat ‘no’”.
He added that NNR, “luckily, has several experts” on both tariffs and customs. They had been busy recently, with NNR’s US division running regular webinars that attracted strong participation, with 200 customers having signed in for the latest live chat.
Director of customs and trade services at DSV Pete Mento urged cargo owners to make customs compliance “the foundation of all your decisions”.
Since the onset of the tariff war, he said, he had received multiple suggestions on how to bypass additional import costs, including having suppliers “invoice for half what we intended to pay, but actually pay them what we agreed, after the import”.
Mr Mento wrote on LinkedIn: “Please don’t make foolish changes to avoid tariffs. CBP will catch you. They just will. And when they do, the impact will be nothing short of brutal. Talk to your broker, make compliance the foundation of all your decisions.
“Lastly, advise your suppliers and leadership that tough times won’t last for ever, and that they don’t give you licence to make bad decisions.”
Despite warnings against under-declaration, numbers provided by customs consultant Tom Gould suggest there is a rise in the practice: in January, 30 audits by CBP identified an additional $71m in duty due on imports, this dropped to $2.9m in February.
Alessio Bruni, a co-founder of Heroes, an advisory for SME e-commerce firms, gave an indication of the scale of the problem, claiming that one forwarder had offered to under-report the value of a shipment by 86%.
He said: “These numbers are mind-blowing. These freight forwarders would bring in products into the country and under-report the true value of the goods by 86%. It’s the equivalent of carrying two large suitcases full of contraband and going through the green ‘Nothing to Declare’ gate at the airport.
“If you get busted, you are screwed. Too many sellers seem to think this is a no-brainer.”
Mr Bruni warned that, with fines being two to three times the true value of the goods, the company could end up paying $750,000.
Hapag-Lloyd will apply a General Rate Increase (GRI) / General Rate Adjustment (GRA) from the Indian Subcontinent and the Middle East to North America for cargo transported in 20' and 40' dry, reefer and special containers, including high cube equipment.
This GRI/ GRA adjustment will be implemented for all containers gated in full from 20 May and will be valid until further notice.
The GRI amount has been set at US$1,000 per container
The Indian Subcontinent & Middle East area covers India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Trag, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, while North America includes the United States and Canada.
US exporters could face demurrage, detention, destruction of cargo, or return costs, after reports suggest some Chinese importers have stopped accepting cargo.
Pat Fosberry, director of export compliance at US forwarder John S James Co, told that while the focus in the US had been on the effect of tariffs on importers, now “US exporters are beginning to feel consequences”.
“Some of our US exporters are reporting that many buyers in China are cancelling orders, stating that China’s import tariffs will escalate the landed costs to be unviable,” Mr Fosberry explained.
Sara Dandan, founder of D&D and maritime dispute company FourOneOne, explained: “The prevalent thinking for US importers was going to be to hold containers at in-bond warehouses in the US after they came in, and then re-export them back to China, to avoid customs fees and duties, and to avoid demurrage and detention fees.
“To me, this seems like the Chinese are heading that off so they themselves don’t get stuck with shiploads of product – and also as a response to rising [US] tariffs.”
And Mr Fosberry said: “It is uncertain how ocean carriers will handle the increase of containers sitting at the ports if cargo is not collected. Will they assign all the liability and costs to the US exporter if containers are not claimed and entered?
“Demurrage, detention, destruction of cargo, return to the US and US domestic costs are all possible for the US exporter.”
Ms Dandan told that, because of Federal Maritime Commission rules, even though the containers would be at a foreign port, it was probable that “they would follow the guidelines of just billing the consignee on the bill of lading, to make their lives easier”.
When asked if it was likely carriers would waive D&D charges during all the uncertainty, she laughed.
But he added that the main concern for US exporters was that “some China buyers have told them they will not be accepting shipments upon arrival”.
But advised: “If you haven’t sent anything yet, I guess the best way to mitigate it is to not send anything, if there are claims that they will refuse cargo and turn it away. Otherwise, I think we will see a lot of abandoned cargo. What else are they supposed to do?”
And she added: “That seems to be speculation for now though. They could re-export it back into the US or see if they can export it elsewhere. I suppose it depends on their business model, etc.
“I highly suspect we’re going to see a lot of companies buying out of countries other than China, and I can all but guarantee that if you looked hard enough, there’d be a Chinese buyer and company there. I am seeing a lot of talk about that on the import and the export side,” said Ms Dandan.
“As for how comfortable companies feel doing that, since laws and regulations vary according to country, I will leave up to them,” she concluded.
A recent breakthrough in the decades-long tariff dispute over DP World’s terminal operations at the Indian port of Nhava Sheva (JNPA) seems to have set off a reconfiguration of ocean carriers’ berthing windows in the harbour.
The stalemate had been a barrier to DP World Nhava Sheva optimising quayside capacity at the port, which handles a significant portion of India’s containerised export/import volumes.
With a settlement, the private concessionaire, the oldest at Nhava Sheva, has begun targeting more liner customers – and a terminal switch announced by the intra-Asia consortium, led by Taiwanese carrier Wan Hai Lines, is proof of that push.
The South East Asia-India (SI8) service has terminated its fixed-day berthing slot deal with PSA International-operated Bharat Mumbai Container Terminals (BMCT) to move weekly calls to DP World’s Nhava Sheva India Gateway Terminal (NSIGT), “with immediate effect”, Wan Hai Lines India told customers.
The SI8 deploys four 3,000 teu ships, two from Wan Hai and one each from Korea Marine Transport Co (KMTC) and Interasia Lines, on a weekly rotation of Jakarta-Surabaya-Singapore-Port Klang-Mundra-Nhava Sheva-Port Klang-Jakarta.
The joint loop was launched in April 2024 to tap into the trade growth linked to diversifying Asian supply chains.
DP World has two marine facilities in Nhava Sheva, offering a combined capacity of a little over 2m teu annually: NSICT began operations in 1997, equipped with a 600-metre quay and 1.2m teu capacity; NSIGT went live in 2015.
The tariff settlement involving NSICT operations was a win-win outcome for both sides, as the port authority also needed terminal scalability to handle growing volumes and fend off any further loss of cargo to rival ports run by Adani Group due to space constraints.
“This settlement provides substantial benefits to the port, resolves a long-standing dispute, and sends a positive signal regarding the robustness and success of the PPP [public-private-partnership] model in India,” JNPA said.
“This is expected to significantly boost traffic at JNPA, generating higher revenues to the port from vessel-related charges, berth hire and royalties.”
At the centre of the dispute was a flawed government policy for terminal concessions, awarded in India’s nascent port privatisation era in the 1990s. As a result, older terminals were forced to scale back capacity within their committed throughput levels instead of maximising utilisation through efficiency.
Meanwhile, PSA has now begun handling vessels on BMCT’s extended Phase 2 wharf at Nhava Sheva, on a limited scale, adding 2.4m teu capacity for its operations once the entire 1,000-metre berth space is ready in the coming months.
That capacity consolidation could heat up competition among Nhava Sheva’s terminals as they woo carriers in a bid to retain and boost market share, industry sources believe.
JNPA saw fiscal year 2024-25 volumes climb 14% year on year, to 7.3m teu, an all-time high. Of this, DP World contributed 2.3m teu, but it could build on that with is now greater operational flexibility.
However, its hinterland connections remain an issue, as they have for other terminals in the port.
Over the past week, DP World Nhava Sheva had to face trucker pushback over long gate delays that vehicle owners claimed caused serious productivity setbacks and supply chain risks for cargo owners.
The terminal responded by promising “proactive efforts to keep the road queue under control”.
