Saint John's port is booming as Ontario shippers seek to dodge U.S. tariffs
Canadian manufacturers reshaping the domestic supply chain to escape tariffs imposed by the United States have discovered a faster, more reliable eastern gateway, with cargo traffic from Ontario to the Port of Saint John in New Brunswick soaring 153 per cent over the past year or so.
Shipments from Ontario now account for nearly a third of the port’s total exports . In 2025, 8,083 20-foot-equivalent unit (TEU) containers left Saint John, more than double the previous year, with Europe receiving about half of the containers, followed by smaller shares to Asia, the Caribbean and the Americas.
Much of this cargo is critical to Ontario’s economy , as more than 4,000 containers of automobiles, metals, and forestry products from the province moved directly to Europe, with an estimated value of $2 billion to $3 billion.
The shift comes as exporters look to hedge against U.S. tariffs on goods entering the American market. Shipments leaving Canada directly through Saint John to Europe or other international destinations aren’t subject to these charges, which is why some exporters are rerouting cargo eastward instead of going through U.S. ports. Shipping delays in major global waterways earlier this year also forced some vessels onto longer routes, slowing transatlantic shipments.
“It doesn’t take much moving from north-south to east-west to be a massive change for the supply chain,” Craig Bell Estabrooks, Port of Saint John chief executive, said.
He said tariffs and global disruptions have encouraged some shippers to look east, but that “the primary reason is that people are just discovering the gateway,” drawn in by Saint John’s two major railway options, modern infrastructure and reliability.
For certain Indian Ocean markets, including Western India, Saint John can be a shorter and more flexible route compared to other Canadian gateways. Recent disruptions — including delays at the Suez Canal, rerouted vessels around Africa and conflicts in the Middle East — have also slowed traffic through key shipping lanes, highlighting the advantage of having an alternative eastern port that can quickly pivot to global markets.
Barry Prentice, a professor of supply chain management at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, said Ontario shippers are choosing Saint John for a few obvious reasons, such as it being closer than Halifax by rail and being able to receive much larger container ships than Montreal.
The port is also served by Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. (CPKC) and Canadian National Railway Co. (CN), while Halifax is only served by CN.
“The competition of the two rail alternatives can only benefit Ontario shippers,” he said.
Prentice said Saint John’s growth is a positive step for market diversification and supply chain resilience, but ports do not create trade on their own.
“The better and alternative port assists, but it does not create trade,” he said, adding that new market connections are ultimately what drive demand.
Beyond infrastructure, U.S. trade policy may be pushing shippers east. Prentice said U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to impose port fees on foreign ships could shift shipping patterns.
“If they go ahead, it would certainly make coming through Saint John much more attractive to foreign shipping companies that are the majority of the carriers,” he said.
Exporters are also wary of the regulatory complexity involved in routing cargo through U.S. ports, because of customs reviews, compliance costs and potential delays.
Other East Coast ports are also seeking new international routes. Last month, the French container shipping company CMA CGM added the Port of Halifax to its weekly INDAMEX (India America Express) rotation, creating a direct link between Halifax and South Asian markets.
Officials said the move strengthens Halifax’s role as a strategic global gateway, supporting Canadian exporters seeking to diversify markets beyond the U.S.
West Coast ports are also diversifying. The Vancouver Fraser Port Authority reported record cargo volumes last year, with freight up eight per cent to 170.4 million tonnes. Grain, crude oil, potash, containers and auto shipments all hit new highs as shippers sought markets beyond the increasingly protectionist U.S.
“The Port of Vancouver is playing an outsized role in delivering more made-in-Canada products to more customers globally,” chief executive Peter Xotta said.
Vancouver’s container expansion at the Roberts Bank terminal is poised to increase capacity by nearly a third.
The federal government has introduced plans to boost non-U.S. exports by Canadian companies, but Bell Estabrooks said much of the growth at Saint John’s port is due to a decade-long modernization effort.
“We imagined years ago what port modernization could look like,” he said. “It involved pitching the government on the old Building Canada Fund and securing an original $205-million (investment).”
That initial investment, combined with a $42-million follow-up, helped deepen the main channel and more than quadrupled the port’s container capacity.
When DP World PLC became the container terminal operator at the port in 2017, it brought post-Panamax cranes, operational expertise and stronger ties to global shipping lines, helping the port handle larger vessels and improve efficiency.
The 2020 return of CPKC also gave Ontario shippers a rare dual‑rail option. Its network does not reach Halifax, so Saint John provides a faster route to the coast that is more than 300 kilometres shorter than traditional routes.
Today, with major lines such as Hapag-Lloyd and Maersk coming in weekly, Saint John has evolved from a regional port into a deep‑water alternative to the congested U.S. eastern seaboard.
The port has doubled its container traffic over the past two to three years to roughly 240,000 TEUs, a surge driven by DP’s hands-on commitment to the port, Jean-Paul Rodrigue, a professor of maritime business administration at Texas A&M University, said.
Saint John’s rail links, proximity to the U.S. Northeast and connections to Caribbean transshipment hubs give shippers flexibility other Atlantic ports can’t match, he said.
“The numbers are telling you … traffic has more than doubled, and that port could capture a bit more if the trends continue,” he said.
The port’s growth has, of course, faced challenges, with a key bottleneck being Simms Corner, where rail lines, trucks and pedestrians converge. To ease congestion, the port is eyeing funding from the federal government’s $5‑billion Trade Diversification Corridors Fund and working with J.D. Irving Ltd.’s New Brunswick Southern Railway, along with provincial and federal partners.
They aim to separate rail and truck traffic, a step toward increasing capacity to a planned one million TEUs from the current 800,000 TEUs.
The port still has room to expand its onsite acreage and rail capacity, Bell Estabrooks said. Additional cranes, loaders and intermodal yard enhancements are planned to ensure Saint John can continue absorbing growing Ontario traffic.
Canada has long relied on the U.S. as its main customer, but even a five per cent to 10 per cent shift to new markets marks a major change for the country’s supply chain, Bell Estabrooks said.
“The Atlantic and Pacific coasts need to be ready for potential increases,” he said.
Prentice said the surge is not just a local success story, but part of a broader shift in Canada’s trade landscape.
Vancouver handles the largest volume of container traffic in Canada — much of it bulk exports to Southeast Asia — but he said growth at the Port of Saint John points to expanding opportunities on the Atlantic side.
“India is probably the most dynamic market in the world, and we have just completed a new trade agreement,” he said. “For India, the closest port is certainly not Vancouver. They are much better served by routes that come through the Suez Canal and across the Atlantic.”
Prentice said Saint John is an ice-free port, has lots of space and is in a good location.
“The only real question is ‘What took them so long?’” he said.
• Email: arankin@postmedia.com