Sea-Intelligence, a maritime intelligence company, conducted a study on the demand flow for containerized cargo shipped North America between January 2018 and September 2025, based on trade data from the Container Trade Statistics (CTS). The company defined the imbalance as the ratio of the outbound volume to the inbound volume, with the outbound being the direction with the highest volume in September 2025 and the inbound the opposite direction.

The study, which analyzed six Far East to North America regional trade routes that connect cargo to North America, found an overall imbalance rate of 60.

On the transpacific route, there were noticeable fluctuations in trade volume around the Chinese New Year throughout the period of the study. In September 2025 the trade volume on this route reached 2.4 million TEU, however, the market evolution between 2020-2025 has led to a sharp in trade imbalance, with the imbalance rate this September ranging from 3.5 to 4.3, i.e., the number of containers imported into North America is four times that of exports.

In September 2025, the transatlantic route reached a trade volume of 630,000 TEU both imports and exports. The report noted that the disruptions of the past five years have caused significant changes in trade imbalance on the route, with the imbalance level increasing from 16-1.8 to 1.7-2.2 now.

Compared with the above two key routes, the trade volume of imports and exports between North and Central and South America reached 4.4 million TEU in September 2025, and the imbalance situation on this route has been relatively stable in the past five.

Only two trade routes related to North America saw some relief in their imbalances, namely the North America-Sub-Saharan Africa trade and the North AmericaOceania trade. However, the data shows that the trade imbalances with Sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania, from the perspective of North America, are "gravating import imbalances." Sea-Intelligence said this means that there are two routes where the imbalances have improved, but from the perspective of North America, is "deteriorating" its trade imbalance.

The analysis emphasized that the ratio of full import containers to North America from all key routes (which must be returned empty shows that the imbalance rate has increased from 40-50% before the pandemic to about 60% in 2025. The report concluded that thisated imbalance has led to increased costs for the return of empty containers and has added to the operational complexity of allocating and transporting them to the right locations.

The Business Daily that the progress of shipbreaking has been slow, with only eight ships totaling 4,130 TEU demolished as of 2025. Carriers expected to use traditional means such as scrapping, idling vessels, and slowing down to address the issue of supply-demand imbalance