Asia-U.S. container rates continue to fall as industry change swirls

A Yang Ming container ship is seen at the Port of Los Angeles. (Photo: FreightWaves/Jim Allen)

Stuart Chirls

Fri, February 20, 2026 at 12:26 AM GMT+9 2 min read

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Analyst Freightos said Asia-U.S. East Coast prices in the latest week fell 12% to about $3,000 per forty foot equivalent unit (FEU) and back to early December levels before pre-Lunar New Year demand picked up.

The holiday is a traditional fallow period for trans-Pacific demand as China factories close for several weeks.

Asia-North Europe rates slid 5% to about $2,400 per FEU, also back to December levels while prices to Mediterranean ports fell 4% to $3,600 per FEU. The latter remains several hundred dollars above the December mark.

Freightos (NASDAQ: CRGO) is a contributor to the SONAR data platform.

Elsewhere, the Trump administration released its long-delayed Maritime Action Plan that includes protectionist policies aimed at reviving domestic shipbuilding. Among other steps, it proposes port fees of between one and twenty five cents per kilo of freight arriving on foreign-buillt vessels. Analyst Lars Jensen and others estimate these fees would range from about $150 per FEU for a one cent per kilo charge to as much as $3,750 per FEU.

The White House offered no timeline for implementation of the plan. Two maritime bills were introduced in Congress after President Donald Trump prioritized shipbuilding plans this past April, but there has been little progress since.

Freightos analyst Judah Levine said a side effect of Trump’s ongoing trade has been a diversification of trade partners and growing commerce between non-U.S. economies.
“This trend of exporting countries seeking alternative sources for growth is also being reflected in ocean freight flows, with carriers shifting some capacity and resources to Far East-West Africa lanes as demand increases,” Levine said. “This shift may also be a factor in recent service reductions on the trans-Atlantic.”

In one of the biggest deals to hit the container market in years, Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd has agreed to acquire Zim (NASDAQ: ZIM) of Israel for $4.2 billion. Levine noted that the deal won’t move Hapag-Lloyd from its spot as the world’s fifth-largest carrier by capacity. But adding 10th-ranked Zim would push it closer to the number four spot held by Cosco (1919.HK) of China, with more than 3 million TEUs combined.

“That capacity will help Hapag-Lloyd, whose Gemini Cooperation partner Maersk (MAERSK-B.CO) was also a bidder, increase its overall market share, particularly on the Far East-North America and trans-Atlantic lanes,” Levine said.

Read more articles by Stuart Chirls here.

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