Between January and June 2026, Asia loaded 10.77 million TEU for Europe, up 12.6% year on year and the largest first half ever recorded on the corridor. The Japan Maritime Center published the figures on 31 August, working from Container Trades Statistics, the London firm that runs the liftings database owned by the major carriers through World Liner Data.
Most coverage led with that number. Far less attention went to the other one.
In the same six months, Europe loaded 3.02 million TEU for Asia. Taken alone, the 1.2% increase looks like a recovery. It is nothing of the sort, and the Asia–Europe container trade now carries an asymmetry that no monthly release captures.
The return leg has fallen for four straight years
The JMC trend table reaches back to 2022 and settles the argument quickly. European container exports to Asia fell in each of the last four years: 13.4% in 2022, then 2.4%, then 3.7%, then 5.7% in 2025. The annual total came down from 6.73 million TEU in 2022 to 5.97 million in 2025, and 2022 was the steepest fall of the four. Over the same span the westbound leg climbed from 15.38 million TEU to 19.83 million, a gain of 28.9%.
So the first half of 2026 did not mark a turn. It marked a bounce off the weakest first half in the series, and at 3.02 million TEU the return leg still sits 11.7% below its level in the first half of 2022.
The ratio explains the corridor faster than any growth rate does. Europe now takes in three and a half loaded boxes for every one it sends out, against 2.34 four years ago, and the net first-half gap widened by 69% over the period.
| First half | Asia to Europe (TEU) | Europe to Asia (TEU) | Boxes in per box out | Net gap (TEU) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 8,004,007 | 3,421,824 | 2.34 | 4,582,183 |
| 2023 | 8,265,638 | 3,219,620 | 2.57 | 5,046,018 |
| 2024 | 8,809,180 | 3,229,595 | 2.73 | 5,579,585 |
| 2025 | 9,573,178 | 2,983,987 | 3.21 | 6,589,191 |
| 2026 | 10,774,653 | 3,020,590 | 3.57 | 7,754,063 |
Source: Container Trades Statistics via Japan Maritime Center, August 2026 release. Preliminary figures, revised monthly. Ratio and net gap calculated by GeoTrends.
Rotterdam and Antwerp say the same thing from the quayside
Corridor statistics can be argued with. Terminal operations in the Asia–Europe container trade are harder to dispute, and Europe’s two largest container ports published the identical finding within a week of each other in July.
Rotterdam reported deep-sea container volumes up 5.2% in TEU for the half-year, driven by an 8% rise in imports from Asia while exports of full containers fell 1%. The port authority’s own phrasing is blunt: this created a further imbalance. Antwerp–Bruges reported full container exports down 5.7% and empty container throughput up 13.7%, which it reads as a growing imbalance between imports and available export cargo. Two port authorities, no shared interest in the conclusion, same conclusion.
Neither headline number proves anything on its own, and it is worth saying so. Rotterdam’s overall container throughput was flat because transhipment fell 20% on a shortage of terminal capacity. Antwerp–Bruges lost roughly 260,000 TEU to a four-day nautical strike in March, an oil spill in the Deurganck dock in April and pilots’ industrial action in June. The directional split is the more useful evidence precisely because each port authority draws that conclusion itself, from its own data.
More tonnes, fewer euros
The same JMC release carries a Eurostat annex that received far less attention. Between January and May 2026, the compilation covers 30.9 million tonnes of EU-27 seaborne imports from China, up 11.7%, worth €140.3 billion, up 1.6%. Unit values therefore fell by roughly 9%.
Read the categories and the pattern hardens.
| EU-27 imports from China, Jan to May 2026 | Volume, y/y | Value, y/y |
|---|---|---|
| Total, categories covered | +11.7% | +1.6% |
| Organic chemicals | +40.8% | −5.3% |
| Inorganic chemicals, precious and rare earth metals | +32.6% | +23.9% |
| Electrical and audio-visual equipment | +19.9% | +8.2% |
| Plastics and articles thereof | +16.5% | −0.7% |
| Machinery | +16.4% | +9.3% |
| Furniture and bedding | +13.9% | −2.7% |
| Toys, games and sporting goods | +12.5% | −12.9% |
| Textiles | −0.3% | −9.2% |
| EU-27 exports to China | −4.6% | −4.2% |
Source: Eurostat, compiled by the Japan Maritime Center. Crude oil, refined products, steel and finished vehicles excluded.
Rising physical volume arriving at falling prices is consistent with industrial overcapacity looking for an outlet, though volume and value alone cannot prove it, since product mix and input costs move unit values too. Bruegel reached a similar conclusion from the customs side, noting that Chinese exports to the EU have compounded at about 6% a year since 2021 while imports from the EU contracted, and that the bloc now absorbs roughly 31% of China’s entire goods-trade surplus. Chinese customs data points the same way, with exports to the EU up more than 18% in June alone.
The monthly run flatters itself
June’s headline, up 16.8% to 1.9 million TEU and an eighth consecutive month of growth, invites more caution than it received. Chinese New Year fell on 29 January in 2025 and on 17 February in 2026, so February met a depressed base and produced a heavily distorted 48.4%. June measured itself against a June 2025 that had managed just 1.0%.
| 2026 | Asia to Europe (TEU) | y/y | Reading the number |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 1,875,690 | +5.9% | Genuine, pre-holiday loading |
| February | 1,658,528 | +48.4% | Dominated by holiday timing |
| March | 1,637,444 | +1.5% | Least distorted comparison |
| April | 1,841,250 | +12.2% | Front-loading |
| May | 1,866,448 | +3.1% | Strong 2025 base |
| June | 1,895,293 | +16.8% | Soft 2025 base; peak partly front-loaded |
| First half | 10,774,653 | +12.6% | Q1 +14.9%, Q2 +10.5% |
Source: Japan Maritime Center, August 2026 release. Preliminary and revised from earlier monthly bulletins.
Sea-Intelligence supplies the second qualifier. In the ten weeks before Chinese New Year, deployed capacity on Asia–North Europe rose from a baseline of 282,947 TEU to a peak of 421,825 TEU, roughly four times the historical pre-holiday build, which the analyst attributes to front-loading against extended transit times. Cargo pulled forward is cargo that does not need to move later.
Rates rose as the sea got longer
Volumes set a first-half record on the Asia-Europe container trade while freight rates rose sharply, which looks odd in a market absorbing heavy newbuilding deliveries. Routing around the Cape of Good Hope explains a good part of it by removing capacity from the effective fleet, though Drewry also credits peak-season demand, capacity management and general rate increases.
| Drewry spot, $ per 40ft | June 2025 | June 2026 | July 2025 | July 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shanghai to Rotterdam | 3,380 | 4,503 (+33.2%) | 3,799 | 5,304 (+39.6%) |
| Shanghai to Genoa | 4,452 | 5,910 (+32.7%) | 3,857 | 6,632 (+71.9%) |
| Rotterdam to Shanghai | 672 | 718 (+6.8%) | 693 | 709 (+2.3%) |
Source: Drewry, compiled by the Japan Maritime Center.
In June a box sailing west cost 6.3 times what the same box cost sailing east, and by July the multiple had widened to 7.5. The Mediterranean carried a further premium of its own, which Flexport described in early July as Asia–Mediterranean spot rates trading above Asia-North Europe at levels not seen outside the Russia–Ukraine period. Drewry’s World Container Index reached $4,639 on 9 July, its highest reading since September 2024, which is another way of saying that even the strongest week of 2026 stayed below the levels of two years earlier.
By the last week of August the mechanism had loosened. The index slipped to $4,473, with Shanghai to Rotterdam at $4,287 and Shanghai to Genoa at $4,866.
Suez is a coordination problem, not a routing decision
MSC told customers on 24 August that it had decided to partially restore Suez Canal transits on a limited number of its East–West services, the fourth major carrier to return after CMA CGM, Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd. The advisory named five sailings across the Jade, Albatros, Tiger and Himalaya services, three of them Asia to Mediterranean, one Asia to North Europe and one India to Mediterranean, starting with the MSC Tina out of Mersin on 20 August. Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd had already moved their AE19 loop back through the canal in mid-August, saving roughly four weeks per round voyage.
Here the game does the work. Every carrier on the Asia–Europe container trade gains individually by returning, because Suez cuts fuel burn, ship days and equipment cycles. Every carrier also knows that a full return releases the capacity the detour was absorbing, which Sogese puts at around 2.5 million TEU, on its own estimate rather than any industry consensus, into a market with almost no spare tonnage to absorb it. Restraint pays collectively and costs individually, so restraint loses. It usually does. Two constraints have been keeping effective capacity out of circulation. Flexport estimated in mid-July that renewed disruption at the Strait of Hormuz had restricted or trapped roughly 200,000 TEU. And on 25 August Linerlytica counted a record 4.31 million TEU stuck in port queues, 12.6% of the fleet, against just 55 idle ships.
The transition carries its own hazard, and it is not the one shippers expect. Sogese warns that Suez-routed and Cape-routed vessels could reach European ports inside compressed arrival windows, spreading congestion inland and producing container shortages at Asian origins some eight to nine weeks later. Sea-Intelligence, meanwhile, modelled carrier capacity plans against a 9.1% full-year demand-growth scenario and found that anything less would produce conditions worse than 2023. The first half delivered 12.6%. The second half is unlikely to.
A deadline is not a threat
Brussels has arrived at the same conclusion by a slower route. In 2025 the EU imported €559.4 billion of goods from China and exported €199.6 billion, a deficit of €359.8 billion, with exports down 6.5% on the year while imports rose 6.4%. The second quarter of 2026 pointed the same way, at €153.6 billion in against €50.3 billion out, imports up 7.9% year on year and exports up 2.8%. In July, the Commission’s deputy director general for trade told the European Parliament that safeguard measures could become legitimate on a case-by-case basis, and that October marks the point at which absence of progress triggers action.
Announcing a deadline is a commitment device, and commitment devices work only when the other side believes you will pay to honour them. Beijing can read the same balance sheet Brussels reads. German industrial exposure, a chemical sector that still counts China among its larger export markets, and twenty-seven capitals with different tolerances for retaliation all reduce the credibility of the announced date. GeoTrends made the general case for this dynamic in When power prevails over economics and in its reading of Thucydides’ Trap.
Two measures already bite. A temporary €3 customs duty replaced the €150 de minimis exemption on 1 July, charged per category of goods rather than per parcel, so a consignment holding three product categories attracts €9, and product identifiers become mandatory on 1 November. That timing matters for reading June. Flexport judged in late July that this year’s European peak arrived early and was partly pulled forward by front-loading ahead of the 1 July change, which makes part of the record a queue rather than a trend.
The fourth quarter does the arithmetic
The second half of 2025 ran larger than the first, at 10.25 million TEU against 9.57 million. Should the second half of 2026 merely repeat that level, the year closes near 21.0 million TEU, which is growth of 6.1%, less than half the first-half rate.
That is a forecast, and it deserves to be labelled as one. Flexport’s ocean commentary in late July still described underlying demand on the lane as steady, even while calling the peak early and partly front-loaded. What has already happened is a change of timing, not yet a fall in volume. Sogese calls fourth-quarter normalisation its base scenario, and The Loadstar reports the same warning alongside schedule reliability of 62.6% in June, with vessels arriving an average 5.3 days late.
So carriers on the Asia–Europe container trade face two clocks running against each other. One releases tonnage as Suez normalises, and today’s congestion is disguising how much. Sea-Intelligence has now put a figure on it: a full return to Suez would contract global head-haul teu-mile demand by 8.7% year on year in the first half of 2027, even assuming underlying volume growth of 6.6%, and even a half return turns teu-mile growth negative. The other clock removes cargo as front-loaded volume works through European warehouses. Whoever blanks sailings first pays for the discipline, and whoever blanks last collects the benefit.
The Mediterranean question stays open
Regional arrivals grew across the board in the first half: North Europe up 12.1% to 6.54 million TEU, the Western Mediterranean up 14.0% to 2.05 million, and the Eastern Mediterranean up 12.6% to 2.18 million. Yet Piraeus Container Terminal handled 1,995,150 TEU in the same period, down 2.9%, which COSCO SHIPPING Ports attributed to softer Mediterranean demand and adverse weather. Alphaliner offered a different reading of the 6% fall in 2025, pointing to Red Sea service reconfigurations that moved cargo toward Spain and northern Europe.
Before treating that divergence as a paradox, note what the two numbers measure. CTS dates each lifting from the sailing at the last port of load in the origin region and counts neither transhipments nor empty boxes. A box crossing from Asia therefore enters the trade statistics once. Terminal throughput, by contrast, includes transhipment handling, and Piraeus Container Terminal lists cargo that uses the port only as a transit station among its main activities. A hub can therefore lose moves while the region it sits in gains trade. Rotterdam illustrates the same distinction from the other end, since its transhipment volumes fell for reasons of terminal capacity rather than trade.
What remains genuinely open is geography. Cape routing favoured Western Mediterranean calls and left the Eastern basin at the end of a long deviation, and Suez reverses that geometry. GeoTrends has examined how the redistribution played out inside a single terminal portfolio and across ten years of one hub. One label deserves suspicion throughout: the CTS Eastern Mediterranean runs from Greece and Türkiye through Egypt and the Black Sea to Georgia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, so it bundles several unrelated trades into one line.
The receiving end of somebody else’s industrial policy
The Asia–Europe container trade has changed function. A corridor that still worked as a two-way exchange in 2022 now operates as a delivery route with a much thinner cargo return, and the numbers describe a continent buying more and selling less, with the Shanghai to Rotterdam freight spread running more than six to one against the return leg. Rotterdam and Antwerp confirm it from the quayside in almost the same language.
Trade policy has argued this as a question of what Europe buys, because that is the side a border can regulate. The container data poses the harder question, which is whether Europe still sells. Safeguards can restrict what enters a market. They cannot manufacture export competitiveness.
One caveat belongs at the end rather than buried. These are preliminary figures, and JMC has already revised January, February and March. The first half of 2026 will probably still stand as the peak of this cycle, and the half that follows will show whether the imbalance behind it came from crisis routing and front-loading, or whether it is simply the shape of the trade from here.