Consumer Demand Slows as Shipping Companies Get New Vessels

Carriers plowed pandemic profits into a fleet of bigger cargo vessels. They’re arriving just as trade growth is softening.

The container ship Mayview Maersk at the Port of Rotterdam.

The tiny landlocked town of Mayview, Missouri, is an unlikely namesake for one of the world’s largest ships.

It’s a rural hamlet of some 200 people where the Old School Store & Bar welcomes Nascar fans with specials on Busch Light, where Michelle’s Place next door serves fried chicken dinners on Sundays, and where utility poles fly faded banners that say, “May the Spirit of Mayview Live On.”