COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Maersk estimates companies pay effective U.S. import tariffs of on average 21% relative to container load, the Danish shipping group said on Wednesday, less than half the rate before Washington paused its sweeping tariffs in April.

Maersk said in a regular global market update that at its peak, shortly after April 2 when President Donald Trump unveiled tariffs against nearly all U.S. trading partners, the average effective rate was 54%. Its estimate was based on the group's container-weighted effective average tariff rate metric.

More than a dozen major U.S. trading partners are rushing to reach agreements with the Trump administration by a July 9 deadline to avoid import tariffs jumping to higher levels.

In April, Trump put a 90-day pause on the stiff levies he had announced just a week earlier that sent global financial markets into a tailspin.

"The whole world is on tariff watch in July and August where various deadlines for potential trade deals with the U.S. expire," Maersk said.

"The outcome of these negotiations will of course colour global trade and consumer sentiment in the months to come," it added.   

The company said it had seen robust container demand growth in the first half of the year.

"What played out was not completely unexpected, and we did see customers advance orders ahead of the tariff announcements," it said.

Maersk has seen many of its large U.S. customers reduce import dependency on China in recent years. 

"Many apparel and fashion customers have now reached single-digit China dependency," it said. 

"Other commodities like home improvements have a significantly higher level of Chinese manufacturing due to the nature of the goods," it added. 

(Reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen and Louise Rasmussen; Editing by Anna Ringstrom and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)