More Transpacific calls to Vietnam are slowly being added, but the relocation of manufacturing production from China will not be swift.

Despite some robust growth out of South East Asia, the eastbound Transpacific container market will very likely end the year with lower volumes for the first time since 2009. The US-China trade dispute appears to have sucked the life out of the trade, beyond which even the very evident trade substitution could not hope to cover. 

Eastbound trade from Asia to the US was flat after 10 months of the year according to PIERS (see Figures 1 and 2) and given the tough comparison to the final two months of 2018, an annual deficit seems inevitable.