In the Superman comics, the Bizarro World is a planet where normal people and events become strangely inverted. Which, in the world of global trade and supply chain, appears to be happening with increasing regularity.

With the holiday season over, import cargo volume at the nation's major retail container ports is expected to slowly decline through the first quarter of the year, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.

Stakeholders at U.S. ports are spending $9bn a year to accommodate the next generation of super-sized container ships. But simply expanding physical infrastructure will not be enough to mitigate port congestion. With fewer vessels moving more containers per call, U.S. ports need to fundamentally change the way containers are moved in and out of terminals.

Mexico is competing with the U.S. for manufacturing work coming back to the western hemisphere from China and other parts of Asia. Will it pose the same challenge for U.S. ports?

Import cargo volume at the nation's major retail container ports is expected to increase 3.3 percent this month over the same time last year as retailers make final preparations for the holiday season, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report from the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.