Global shipping giant Maersk on Thursday announced better-than-expected first-quarter profit and maintained its 2025 financial guidance even as it revised lower full-year expectations for global container market volume growth amid President Donald Trump's trade war and tariff policies.
The Denmark-based fleet operator stuck by its previous 2025 earnings forecast of between $6 billion and $9 billion, but changed its view on global shipping volumes, expecting a range between a 1% decline to a 4% increase "given increased macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty."
However, Maersk Chief Executive Vincent Clerc told analysts on the Q1 earnings call Thursday that the current situation is mostly between the U.S. and China and that volumes in the rest of the world have not yet been disrupted.
"While the level of uncertainty has increased from potentially worse than expected tariffs and ongoing trade tensions, the uncertainty has so far been very U.S. centric rather than global," Clerc said Thursday.
Trump Tariffs Were An Earthquake. The Trade War Tsunami Is Hitting U.S. Ports.
Clerc added that while China-U.S. shipping volumes have declined sharply in recent weeks, those trade routes represent only 5% of Maersk volumes.
"The remaining 95%, comprising the rest of the world, continues with unchanged demand," he said.
Shipping Stocks
Clerc's comments about continued strong global demand reflects in stocks like international container-freight shipper Euroseas. Its shares gained nearly 8% this week, adding to a three-month rebound. Euroholdings, a low-priced stock, and Navios Maritime Partners, also show multi-month rebounds in the current stock market.
Another group of rebounding shipping stocks are oil tanker fleets. Frontline, Teekay Tankers and International Seaways have shown sharp recent gains on downshifting oil prices.
Lower oil prices typically point to increased volume sales of oil. Tanker prices generally rise as buyers seek to move that volume.
Port Of Los Angeles Warns 'Difficult Decisions' Ahead As Shipments From China Cease
Container liners and logistics companies ZIM Integrated Shipping and XPO Logistics have declined 11% increased 3%, respectively in May stock market action.
The 37 stocks in the IBD-tracked Transportation-Ship industry group have collectively declined 18% during 2025. That puts the sector at a weak No. 186 out of 197 ranked industries, with 1 being the best performer and 197 the worst.
Trump Trade War: U.S.-China Talks
Maersk's outlook comes as U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Rep. Jamieson Greer travel to Switzerland on Thursday for "initial" trade talks with Beijing's lead economic representative.
The Wall Street Journal reported that China's Foreign Ministry said He Lifeng, China's vice premier and leader Xi Jinping's economic czar, will visit Switzerland from May 9 to 12 and hold discussions with American officials.
The Trump trade war is specifically targeting China with 145% tariffs on imports. China has retaliated with duties of their own on U.S. goods.
"I think we're going to have a good weekend with China," Trump said Thursday.
Meanwhile, The U.S. and the U.K. have agreed on a trade deal. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced details. Thursday. He said the U.S. would bring in $6 billion a year via a 10% tariff. In return, the U.S. will allow 100,000 U.K. autos into the U.S. with a 10% tariff, below the 25% base automotive tariff. The U.K. will also pare back or eliminate its 2% tax on digital services revenue from search engines, social media and online marketplaces. The digital services tax raises over $1 billion a year from the likes of Amazon, Facebook and Google.
Earlier this week, the U.K. completed a far-reaching deal with India.
Clerc on Thursday outlined several scenarios for how U.S.-China trade picture could advance this week. The Maersk chief executive told analysts that if a "de-escalation was to happen" it is likely that there would be a "catch up effect where at some point the situation resolves itself and then you see a much stronger demand coming out of China."
The second possibility, Clerc said, is that the U.S.-China situation gets more "entrenched."
"What is happening in these weeks, where the volumes are not moving, is basically our customers are drawing on inventory and are trying to wait and see for as long as possible what is going to happen," Clerc said.
He added that their customers are currently not only drawing down their U.S. inventories, but inventory in Canada and Mexico to see "how long they can hoard those goods and wait before they find out what tariff regimes they have to plan in their supply chain."
"If the tariffs go away, they will reopen the gates for purchase orders and parts purchase," Clerc said. "If they don't, I don't think our customers, at this stage, have a good playbook."
Please follow Kit Norton on X @KitNorton for more coverage.
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