The five largest US importers by volume — Walmart, Target, The Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Ashley Furniture — collectively accounted for nearly one out of every 10 US import TEU. Photo credit: trekandshoot/Shutterstock.com.

The US-China trade war took its toll on containerized trade to the United States last year, with total US import volume ticking up just 0.43 percent year over year to 24.9 million TEU, down from a 7.1 percent increase the previous year, according to data from PIERS, a sister company of JOC.com within IHS Markit.

Total US imports from Asia fell 2.2 percent to 16.55 million TEU in 2019. Imports from China were hit especially hard, declining 9.8 percent to 10.5 million TEU as retailers and manufacturers shifted some of their sourcing from China to Southeast Asia. Excluding China, US imports from the rest of Asia increased 14.8 percent in 2019.

Container exports from the US, meanwhile, rose 2.1 percent to just shy of 13 million TEU, after growing 0.1 percent in 2019, despite retaliatory Chinese tariffs on US export products.

Walmart remained atop the list of the largest US importers by a wide margin, despite importing fewer TEU than it did in 2018. The five largest importers by volume — Walmart, Target, The Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Ashley Furniture — collectively imported more than 2.47 million TEU in 2019, accounting for nearly one out of every 10 US import TEU.

On the export side, Koch Industries retained to the No. 1 spot, increasing its volume another 13.5 percent to 283,511 TEU after more than doubling it the year before.

JOC.com’s annual Top 100 US Importers and Exporters ranking begins with data from PIERS and is enhanced by information gathered from other industry sources.

The figures are expressed in TEU, the most common measurement of containerized ocean shipping. One standard 40-foot ocean container equals two TEU. These lists are restricted to shippers — beneficial owners of containerized cargo that entered or exited US ports by ocean vessel during 2019 — and don’t include shippers associations, carriers, non-vessel operating common carriers (NVOs), forwarders or brokers, third-party logistics providers (3PLs), banks, or “to-order” negotiable bills of lading, or data falling under privacy strictures. International import and export cargoes moving into and out of the US via air, rail, or truck also are not included. The JOC analysis accounts for changes in ownership structures and impacts on volume by tallying volume at subsidiary companies to the best of our ability. We also rely on self-reported numbers backed by documentation from companies that fall under privacy strictures.

Rankings compiled by Marcin Lejk, data analyst.