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Container shipping company Maersk, widely viewed as a bellwether for global trade, isn’t seeing signs of a U.S. recession (CNBC).

What’s going on: “We’ve seen in the last couple of years, actually, [the shipping container] market remaining surprisingly resilient to all the fear of recessions that there has been,” Maersk CEO Vincent Clerc said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Wednesday.

• Container demand tends to be a solid indicator of general macroeconomic strength, he added.
• U.S. inventories are higher than they were at the start of 2024, but have not reached a high enough level to suggest a slowdown.  

Why it’s important: “The last week has seen a sudden escalation in worries about a recession in the world’s biggest economy, the U.S., following a set of weaker-than-expected jobs data, which has divided economists and market participants.”

• Advance U.S. retail inventories were up 5.3% in June from a year earlier, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Why it’s happening: “Chinese exports have been the engine behind strong container volumes as the global share of containers originating in or heading for China has increased, [Clerc] continued.”

Unexpected resilience: Maersk has been “surprised” by container-volume resilience in the past few years, Clerc said, and expects that resilience to continue in the coming quarters. 

• Clerc’s views are marked departure from Maersk’s “gloomy” 2022 outlook, in which the company warned about a global recession.

Red Sea factor: Maersk foresees shipping challenges in the Red Sea to continue “at least until the end of the year,” however.

• “That means, in the short term, higher cost,” Clerc said, adding that if Houthi attacks on commercial vessels in the region continue, Maersk would need to pass some of the higher costs on to its customers.