Sunday 2 November 2025 · below the Index · spike
US-China maritime trade pause announced
The US and China agreed to pause maritime trade actions for one year, affecting tanker and container shipping markets. The announcement generated research and social media attention amid broader discussions of freight rates, shipyard capacity, and geopolitical trade dynamics.
Peak 57.0 on Sunday 2 November 2025. The shaded band is the incident window.
Where the attention came from
Mixed-led, both over the window and on the peak day.
Bar = share of the extra attention over the whole window; the tick marks the share on the peak day alone, where the two differ.
How unusual it was
This was above 50% of all days since 2020, and the highest since Sunday 26 October 2025.
How far it spread
No vessel type moved — 0 of 6 vessel-type groups drew clearly more readers than usual.
Bars start at 1× — normal readership for that vessel type, the weeks before the incident. Grey = no clear lift. "Over time" shows each group's daily readers through the window; "All 12 articles" breaks the six groups back into their members.
How it was framed the frame glossary →
Lead frame: geopolitical pawn. Trade press was 8% of in-scope coverage — the story had left the trade press and gone mainstream. (Historical coverage is scored on headlines only.)
Acting, or acted upon
In 47% of coverage shipping was the thing acted upon rather than the actor; 47% of it was strongly negative in tone.
What the coverage said
- US and China to Pause Maritime Trade Actions for One Yearshipandbunker.com · 2025-10-30
- US-China trade truce will not revive weakening ocean container shipping market with freight rates still expected to fall in 2026hellenicshippingnews.com · 2025-11-01
Gold rule = a national or international outlet, not a trade title. fewer than three independent outlets.
- tier C: only a Wikipedia article, GDELT sub-vocabulary term, or social per-term query fired — not yet confirmed as a real maritime incident (Phase C naming/is_maritime_incident does that).
- coverage scored on title only (no excerpt) — measured ~8pp frame precision cost vs title+excerpt (docs/HANDOVER-incidents.md §2.3)
- coverage filtered to articles matching this incident specifically (38/137 kept) — see coverage.filter.terms
Maritime Attention Index, incident: US-China maritime trade pause announced, peak 57.0 on 2 November 2025. maritimeattentionindex.com/incidents/2025-us-china-maritime-trade-pause-announced/