Tariffs Causing Cargo Shift Away From The U.S.

The numbers are clear: the Trump administration’s roller-coaster tariff policy hurt US air cargo operators in 2025 and shifted traffic patterns away from the US, with declines particularly evident on the traditionally lucrative North America-Asia corridor. Air cargo traffic on Asia-Europe routes surged in 2025 while Asia-North America flows contracted.

US President Donald Trump has imposed high levels of tariffs on US trading partners throughout the world, often ratcheting up or lowering rates on individual countries unexpectedly.

The White House’s trade policy made it more expensive for US companies to import goods in 2025, while unpredictability created a level of uncertainty that was highly disruptive for airlines transporting cargo, pushing traffic away from the US to more stable markets.

According to IATA, air cargo traffic between Asia and Europe, as measured in cargo tonne kilometers (CTK), increased 10.3% year-over-year in 2025, whereas Asia-North America traffic declined 0.8% compared to 2024. Asia-North America’s global international air cargo market share dropped by 1.2 percentage points to 23.4% in 2025, while Asia-Europe’s market share increased by 1.1 percentage points to 21.5%.

“The most notable beneficiary of this shift [away from Asia-North America] was the Europe-Asia corridor, which recorded a 12.2% year-over-year increase in December, marking its strongest December performance since 2016,” IATA said in its report on 2025 cargo traffic.

“A lot of countries in Asia that typically ship to the US saw demand in other alternative markets,” Brandon Fried, executive director at the US-based Airforwarders Association, told ATW.

Airlines carrying cargo “fly to where the money is,” Fried said. “The capacity will go where planes can get filled with freight. That’s simple economics. They can’t fill planes coming into the US, but they can fill them going from Asia to Europe. Capacity is recalibrating.”

IATA noted the Asia-North America air cargo corridor “experienced contraction in seven out of 12 months [in 2025], with declines ranging from 0.7% to a pronounced 10.4% in May, reflecting the combined effects of tariff measures and the removal of the US de minimis exemption for shipments valued under $800.”

IATA said the weak North America-Asia performance underscored “how policy-driven disruptions can reshape corridor relevance,” adding that international air cargo corridor market share is being “redistributed away from policy-exposed lanes toward structurally resilient routes.”

Overall, Asia-Pacific airlines saw CTKs increase 8.4% year-over-year in 2025, the highest growth of any region. In contrast, North American airlines posted a 1.3% decline in cargo traffic in 2025, the weakest performance globally.

“Things are recalibrating,” Fried said. “The US is no longer the focus destination.”

COURT PUSHBACK

The US Supreme Court in February ruled that the majority of Trump’s tariffs were illegal. The president had imposed the majority of tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), saying the law enacted in 1977 allowed him to bypass Congress because the tariffs were needed to confront an array of emergencies, including trade deficits.

“IEEPA does not authorize the president to impose tariffs,” US Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the Supreme Court’s majority opinion, noting the administration had used IEEPA to justify “a sweeping delegation of Congress’s power to set tariff policy—authorizing the president to impose tariffs of unlimited amount and duration, on any product from any country … IEEPA [does not] give the president power to unilaterally impose unbounded tariffs and change them at will.”

Trump immediately responded to the Supreme Court decision by saying he would use other statutes to impose tariffs, though he will likely have much less room to arbitrarily raise and lower duties on individual countries.

Fried said that while the Supreme Court decision was “a step in the right direction,” Trump’s tariff strategy going forward remains unpredictable and the ruling is unlikely to arrest air cargo’s shift away from the US market.

“I see more uncertainty,” he said. “I see capacity being reapportioned to other countries outside the US. What I’ve learned in this business is that air cargo follows certainty. When the policy creates turbulence like it has, supply chains aren’t going to stop. They’re going to change. They’re going to pivot to other places. I think if we look back at 2025, people were just not confident in the US. It’s a confidence problem. I assume we’re going to see more lack of confidence in the US in 2026.”