Retail container ports have reached a new record, 2 million containers in a month, with retailers scrambling to get merchandise into the U.S. before possible tariff hikes, according to the National Retail Federation. Tariff increases were postponed for 90 days after talks between the U.S. and China during the Group of 20 meeting. "We hope that the temporary stand-down becomes permanent, but in the meantime there has been a rush to bring merchandise in before existing tariffs go up or new ones can be imposed," said NRF Vice President for Supply Chain and Customs Policy Jonathan Gold in a statement. "China's abuses of trade policy need to be addressed, but tariffs that drive up prices for American families and costs for U.S. businesses are not the answer." The Global Port Tracker said U.S. ports it covers handled 2.04 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in October, the last month for which numbers are available. That's up 9% from September and up 13.6% from last year. November was estimated at 2.01 million TEUs, up 14% year-over-year. Imports are forecast to fall in 2019 "as the market adjusts to higher prices to to the Trump tariffs and the impact on consumer and industry confidence going forward," said Ben Hackett, founder of Hackett Associates, which produces the Global Port Tracker for the NRF. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF XRT, -2.64% is down 3% for 2018, the Amplify Online Retail ETF IBUY, -3.11% is up 5.8% for the period. The S&P 500 index SPX, -2.37% is down 0.7%] for the year to date.