April container volumes surge at Port of New York-New Jersey

Improvement came after Bessent comments on tariff fight

(Photo: Port Authority of New York and New Jersey)

The busiest container port on the U.S. East Coast saw surging container volume in April.

The Port of New York and New Jersey handled 751,194 twenty-foot equivalent units in April as shippers continued to frontload imports ahead of tariffs on Chinese goods.

The total was an increase of 24% from April 2019 prior to the pandemic and a 6% gain from April 2024, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Over the first four months of the year, the port handled 2,954,913 TEUs. This marked a 23% jump from the same period of 2019 and an increase of 9% from the first four months of 2024.

Container rates tracked by SONAR paralleled the April gains as container rates from Yantian, China, to New York-New Jersey staged a “V shape-plus” recovery after U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on April 27 said “there is a path” to a tariff agreement with China. Rates increased from $3,826 on April 28 to $4,348 on May 1.

(Chart: SONAR)

Find more articles by Stuart Chirls here.

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Stuart Chirls

Stuart Chirls is a journalist who has covered the full breadth of railroads, intermodal, container shipping, ports, supply chain and logistics for Railway Age, the Journal of Commerce and IANA. He has also staffed at S&P, McGraw-Hill, United Business Media, Advance Media, Tribune Co., The New York Times Co., and worked in supply chain with BASF, the world's largest chemical producer. Reach him at stuartchirls@firecrown.com.