Volume of freight trade could hinge on decision

The looming U.S. Supreme Court decision on the legality of many of President Donald Trump’s tariffs has companies on edge as they eye potential refunds, but the ruling also could quickly influence the volume of trade to the U.S. ahead of Lunar New Year, according to logistics experts.

The freight industry in the U.S. has been in a rate recession due to lower container volumes after companies front-loaded products to soften the impact of tariffs. The pulling forward of freight altered the traditional peak season of shipping container movement in 2025.

If the tariffs implemented under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act are ruled to be illegal by the Supreme Court, imports to the U.S. may rise as companies feel more confident about their cash situation and seek an opening to buffer inventory ahead of any revised tariff plan from the Trump administration, which officials said will be ready to go and accomplish its existing trade goals.

“If the IEEPA tariffs were to be removed from all imported goods, there would certainly be an increase in imports,” said Paul Brashier, vice president of global supply chain for ITS Logistics. “Especially for goods recently being sourced in higher-tariffed countries,” he said.

The Supreme Court issued three decisions Wednesday morning, but the tariffs case was not among them.

While Trump’s trade war hasn’t slowed Chinese trade with other nations — it just reported a record $1.2 trillion trade surplus — global ocean container volumes to the U.S. tracked by Sonar show a 14% decrease year over year. The higher tariffs forced some businesses to run with leaner inventories, with the drop in Chinese trade the most severe. Project44’s January Tariff Report estimates U.S. imports from China fell 28% year over year, while exports to China declined 38% in 2025. “This marked one of the sharpest bilateral trade contractions in recent history,” Project44 noted in its report.

The Supreme Court decision comes at a critical time of year for supply chain management decisions within companies because factories shut down in China for a month in February for the Lunar New Year. Orders for the delivery of spring and summer freight need to be placed early to ensure the products leave the factories to be delivered in time to the U.S. The time frame for companies to place manufacturing orders for Lunar New Year is typically at the end of December or the beginning of January, to avoid the slowdown in production of their imports. According to Seko Logistics, the slowdown begins three to four weeks before Lunar New Year, as workers begin to start leaving the factories to head home.

This year, the Lunar New Year falls between Feb. 17 and March 3.

“If the Supreme Court does rule the tariffs illegal, this will absolutely impact orders with an increased demand for bookings for three reasons,” said Brian Bourke, chief commercial officer for Seko Logistics. “First, the timing of the Lunar New Year holiday. Second, we fully expect other tariff provisions to be used, but there are limits and implementation timelines that will encourage companies to ‘beat the clock’ again, and third is the expected infusion of future cash to fund these purchases.” 

If the tariffs are ruled illegal, the Court of International Trade has the legal authority to require refunds are paid to U.S. importers and retain jurisdiction over claims for refunds for a two-year statute of limitations period. At the same time, the Trump administration has said if the Supreme Court rules against it, there is already a plan in place to implement tariffs using other legal provisions.

Smaller companies would be expected to act first. “Small and medium-sized businesses must start ordering early compared to the larger businesses because of their planning and smaller staff,” said Eytan Buchman, CMO of Freightos. “The tariffs are sucking the life out of them because of the lack of stability in their supply chain planning. There is too much uncertainty.”

Based on its analysis covering five years of Lunar New Year ordering data, Freightos would expect a surge of orders from small and medium-sized businesses to kick in very soon if a ruling against Trump’s tariffs is issued.

“Normally, we see a massive spike in importer activity three to four weeks ahead of Chinese New Year,” said Buchman. “This means U.S. small and medium-sized businesses have until Jan. 20 to plan their shipment.”

A recent survey from Freightos indicates that small and medium-sized businesses won’t all necessarily begin resourcing from China. Respondents said if the tariffs were ruled illegal by the Supreme Court, they would broaden their global sourcing base and evaluate high-quality, lower-cost suppliers in new regions without tariff-related cost penalties. Others mentioned they would move production back to China.

A recent CNBC Supply Chain survey showed there was no bump in additional orders from China in November or December after a trade truce between the two nations was announced on Oct. 30, despite expectations by logistics managers there could be a surge in new orders. The current situation of lean inventories within the U.S. supply chain can be seen clearly in trade data after the holidays. Warehouse inventories tracked on the Logistics Managers’ Index show a strong contraction in warehouse inventories by 17.4% month over month.

“Right now, there is a certain amount of defeatism because they feel worse off than a year ago. They want to be able to plan their supply chain,” Buchman said.

But not all players within the supply chain are convinced that the court’s decision will be a major swing factor in trade volumes to the U.S. IMC Logistics tells CNBC it is seeing strong volumes from Asia to the West Coast and does not foresee a decline in volumes as retailers, manufacturers and wholesalers are actively restocking after a robust holiday season. “Import volumes have continued to demonstrate strength through the end of the year and into January 2026,” said Brian Kobza, IMC’s chief commercial officer.

Kobza added that because of the time it takes for orders to be made and then travel across the ocean, any impact on higher container volumes would not be seen for roughly 45 days. “We do not believe the ruling will impact total import volumes either way based on how trade reacted in 2025,” he said.

“If the Supreme Court overturns the tariffs, there may be a small bump, but nothing dramatic appears to be coming,” said Alan Baer, CEO of OL USA.