Where might container rates go?/Walmart gives good overview on tariff challenge and the still 'choiceful' customer

On top of the container rate increase I pointed out yesterday from the World Container Index, the CEO of Flexport tweeted out this morning, "Ocean freight bookings from China to the US up 275% this week over last week. There won't be enough ships for all this cargo. Get ready for surge pricing." Where does he think container rates can go to? "$6k-7$ by end of June is my prediction" he further tweeted. For reference, the Shanghai to LA route yesterday rose to $3,136. https://x.com/typesfast/status/1923227365758455958

What Walmart said of significance on its earnings call in light of everything going on:

Walmart US comps up 4.5% and Sam's higher by 6.7% and "Those strong Q1 results were not driven by inflation. Transactions and units drove our top line. Globally, we grew e-commerce 22% with each segment delivering growth of at least 20%. Inventory is in good shape."

"The immediate challenge is obviously navigating the impact of tariffs here in the US...I want to thank President Trump and Secretary Bessent for the progress made recently. We're hopeful that it leads to a longer term agreement between the US and China that would result in even lower tariffs. We will do our best to keep our prices as low as possible. But given the magnitude of the tariffs, even at the reduced levels announced this week, we aren't able to absorb all the pressure given the reality of narrow retail margins."

"The merchandise that we import comes from all over the world from dozens of countries. Other than the US, the other large markets are China, Mexico, Vietnam, India and Canada. China in particular represents a lot of volume in certain categories like electronics and toys. All of the tariffs create cost pressure for us, but the larger tariffs on China have the biggest impact. The cost pressure from all the tariff impacted markets started in late April and it accelerated in May."

They will try to keep food prices low as "We won't let tariff related cost pressure on some general merchandise items put pressure on food prices. But as it relates to food tariffs on countries like Costa Rica, Peru and Columbia are pressuring imported items like bananas, avocados, coffee and roses."