China-origin imports continued to weaken in December, while Southeast Asian countries gained share, according to Descartes. “At 31.7%, China’s share of total US container imports in December 2025 is the lowest compared to the same month in each of the last six years,” states the Global Shipping Report.

“The key story of China is that it’s going to continue to be volatile, but unofficial data from the first half of January this year is on trend historically,” says Jackson Wood, Director of Industry Strategy, Global Trade Intelligence for Descartes, adding that the relationship between China and the US has many dimensions, and factors other than tariffs come into play, such as U.S. export controls and technology access.

Contrasting China, other countries in Southeast Asia showed gains in December. The Descartes report shows strong MoM gains for South Korea (16.6%), Taiwan (14.1%) and Vietnam (5.6%), and YoY gains for Thailand (28.3%), Vietnam (21.5%) and Indonesia (19.6%), “with expanding volumes from Southeast Asia partially offsetting sustained weakness in China-origin imports.”

“Though the raw data may suggest that Southeast Asia is stepping in to fill a void, it could also reflect companies operating in China, with a footprint in some of these other countries, trying to navigate around the onerous U.S. tariffs on Chinese-origin products,” Wood considers. “Is a product coming from Vietnam actually originating in Vietnam? That’s where supply chains get a little bit more opaque.”