Peak season showed up in May this year. The invoice arrives Monday.
Container rates climbed for the third straight week. ONE just set a $2,000 per FEU surcharge on Transpacific eastbound effective June 1. The import plan built in April reads differently this morning.
Drewry's World Container Index closed last week at $2,712 per FEU, up 6% in seven days and up for the third week running. Shanghai to Los Angeles at $3,385. Shanghai to New York at $4,317. Asia to Europe moving faster still, Shanghai to Rotterdam jumped 15% in a week to $2,773.
What's pushing it isn't mysterious. Carriers saw the demand pull-forward, blanked seven sailings on the Transpacific for next week, and started layering Peak Season Surcharges weeks earlier than the calendar usually allows. ONE goes live with the $2,000 per FEU PSS on June 1. CMA CGM publishes new FAK levels the same day, around $4,000 per FEU on Asia to Europe. The pattern is consistent across operators.
Peak season usually shows up in late July when retailers pull Q4 inventory. This year it landed in late May, because shippers front-loaded against tariff and rules-of-origin uncertainty that nobody expects to clear before July 1. The capacity that would normally sit idle through June is already booked.
What changes before Monday
Anything moving on a confirmed booking before June 1 dodges the PSS for that container. Anything shipping after rolls under the new structure, and the new structure isn't going to soften in June because carriers are still tightening capacity, not loosening it. Three to four weeks of forward booking visibility is the working assumption right now.
The Q4 2025 ocean contract priced under flat-rate assumptions through mid-year is already underwater. Q3 renewals are where that gets reset, not Q4. The CFO modeling landed cost should keep in mind that every dollar per FEU at the headline rate reads closer to a dollar fifty at the door, once drayage, chassis, and the surcharges that travel with PSS get layered in.
From the operator side
For the shipper with FOB Asia and back-to-school inventory targets, the decision window is days, not weeks. Anything not on water this week lands at the new rate.
For the 3PL managing client routing guides, lane-level cost has to be rerun in the next 72 hours, because the guide that priced out a month ago is going to fail at audit when July invoices reconcile.
For the procurement director looking at carrier contracts, the conversation that was going to happen in Q4 moved to Q3, and the leverage is now sitting on the carrier side of the table for the first time in three years.
WHAT ELSE HAPPENED
Bilateral USMCA round opened today in Mexico City without Greer Deputy USTR Jeff Goettman is leading the US delegation through tomorrow, with 60 business reps and a bipartisan House Ways and Means group. Greer was pulled to a cabinet meeting in Washington. Round 2 is set for Washington June 16-17, Round 3 for Mexico City the week of July 20. The table covers rules of origin and economic security. Not on the table this week: the 25% steel, 25% aluminum, 25% autos non-compliant, or 20% fentanyl tariff. Those stay where they are.
Truckload spot rates at $2.89 per mile, highest since 2022 National dry van spot, fuel inclusive, broke out to a new cycle high. Tender rejections sit at 13-14%, levels not seen consistently since the post-COVID unwind. The FMCSA CDL enforcement crackdown that started last summer is visibly shrinking capacity. Routing guides built when carriers took everything are getting bounced. For carriers, this is the first real pricing power in three years.
ANTAC threatens nationwide blockade ahead of World Cup The National Association of Transporters and the Farmland Rescue Front are signaling another round of highway shutdowns before the tournament opens June 11. Last November's blockade hit 25 states and cut customs corridors for days. Q1 cargo theft stayed concentrated, with 82% of incidents in ten states. For anyone with freight moving Bajío to Laredo or through Manzanillo this June, contingency routing belongs on the table this week.
Durable goods orders for April: +7.9% Census Bureau release this morning, nearly double the +4.0% consensus. Transportation drove most of the print. Industrial demand pulled forward against expected tariff and rules-of-origin changes, the same signal showing up in ocean and truckload. The Q3 capacity you were planning to bid against is already spoken for.
BLACKETT.