⁍ Surging shipments into the United States are fueling record high freight costs and logjams at seaports.

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⁍ transportation executives say the rally will lose steam with a second wave of COVID-19 restrictions on the cards.

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– America’s retailers are so eager to get their goods into the hands of consumers that they’re shipping them all the way from Asia. “We are sold out. The ships are 100% full. The containers are 100% full. You can’t get a container,” the CEO of Japanese container group Ocean Network Express said at a recent International Chamber of Shipping virtual event, according to Reuters. “This will probably taper off in the first or second week of December,” says the executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, the busiest ocean trade hub in the US. Total imports to the 10 largest US seaports increased 9.2% in August and 12.4% in September, trade data from Descartes Systems Systems.TO showed. US business inventories rebounded in August, as retailers and other companies raced to depleted warehouses and distribution centers. “Inventories are still quite low and there’s a significant need to replenish them,” says a vice president of freight management at Penske Logistics. Data suggests that record volume at the Port of Los Angeles, the busiest ocean trade hub, could stretch through November. Meanwhile, it is causing backups that could ripple through the supply chain. ‘This will probably taper off in the first or second week of December,’ Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka said of the import rush.