Trimtabist
The US Trade Ledger — every US container gateway, every partner country, every month. Census-recorded, AIS-verified.

The Red Sea crisis did not move cargo off the US East Coast

published null · 2023-12 → 2024-05 · verdict: NULL — PUBLISHED AS SUCH

What was registered, before the data was touched

Registered watch: Suez avoidance adds 10–14 days to Asia–USEC transits; if shippers respond, East Coast share of gateway imports falls in favour of the West Coast.

What the record shows

It didn’t. The East Coast’s share of the eight gateways held 56–59%, flat through the entire disruption window. Whatever the Red Sea crisis did to rates, schedules and transit times, it did not move tonnage between US coasts at monthly grain. We publish this null with the same prominence as a hit: a widely assumed effect that does not appear in the record is a finding, and the atlas registered 32 of these watches precisely so the misses get printed alongside the hits. The arrival-timing channel (cargo arriving later, not elsewhere) remains open and needs a lag design, not a share design.

61 31 2023-06: 58 %2023-07: 61 %2023-08: 57 %2023-09: 56 %2023-10: 60 %2023-11: 56 %2023-12: 58 %2024-01: 56 %2024-02: 59 %2024-03: 59 %2024-04: 58 %2024-05: 60 %2024-06: 56 % 56 2023-062023-122024-06
East + Gulf Coast share of containerised imports through the 8 gateways, monthly. Red Sea diversions begin Dec 2023. The line does not move.

What would prove this wrong

This IS the falsification: the registered coast-shift hypothesis failed the data and is recorded as failed.

Cite this

In print: “The Red Sea crisis did not move cargo off the US East Coast” — a pre-registered event study by the Trimtab US Trade Ledger, ruled 2026-08-06, from US Census port records and 174,440 vessel stays (NOAA AIS, 2018–2024) — trimtabist.com/atlas/red-sea-null
For the record: Event Atlas · red-sea-null · NULL — PUBLISHED AS SUCH · ruled 2026-08-06

This study is a frozen artifact: the ruling and its exhibits do not change when new data lands. If the verdict is ever revised, the revision is printed here with its reason, and the original stays on the record.

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