trade

Dun & Bradstreet's latest report reveals that while business optimism grows, supply chain disruptions loom large due to geopolitical tensions.

Mike Burkhart of CH Robinson discusses the shift in imported goods away from China and into Mexico.

Even though this development is unlikely to have a material impact on the current state of global trade, specifically as it relates to tariffs and the ongoing U.S.-China trade war, it was very interesting to hear thoughts about it from two of the foremost U.S.-based trade experts on a call hosted last week by the Port of Los Angeles (POLA), POLA Executive Director Gene Seroka and National Retail Federation Vice President of Supply Chain and Customs...

The coronavirus is continuing to impact United States-bound consumer goods originating out of China, according to the most recent edition of the Port Tracker report, which was issued today by the National Retail Federation (NRF) and maritime consultancy Hackett Associates.

Logistics Management Group News Editor Jeff Berman recently spoke with Doug Waggoner, CEO of Chicago-based 3PL Echo Global Logistics, about various topics, including pricing, capacity, trucking insurance, and Peak Season.

U.S. reports covered in the report handled 1.95 million Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEU) in October, the most recent month for which data is available, which is up 0.6% over September’s 1.97 million TEU and down 7.5% annually compared to the 2 million TEU handled in October 2018, which stands as the all-time monthly record.

While the topic of tariffs and United States-China trade tension tends to generate some sort of response from supply chain stakeholders, the ones most heard tend to be common refrains along the lines of “what now?,” “OK…,” or “we will have to wait and see,” among others. But a new one can now be added to that list, with President Trump saying this week at the NATO meetings in London that there is a possibility a trade deal with China...

Despite protestations from the Trump administration, the two-year tariff war with China may be having unintended negative consequences on freight haulers and the U.S. economy, according to a new study issued this week.

October shipments, at 1,047,257, were off 8.9% annually on a preliminary basis, which was far steeper than September’s 1.6% annual decline and the third quarter’s 0.2% gain. Containerized freight shipments in October rose 7.5 On a year-to-date basis through October, shipments are up 0.05%, at 10,301,352.

POLA reported that total volume for the month, at 770,189 TEU (twenty-foot equivalents), was off 19.1% annually, facing a difficult annual comparison to October 2018, and POLB reported that total volume, at 688,425 TEU, were off 2.4% annually.

It goes without saying that day-to-day cost pressures come with the territory in the procurement world. But that sentiment takes on a more heightened feel, when seeing those pressures from the perspectives of chief procurement officers (CPO), in light of myriad economic- and trade-related challenges, among other factors.

When it comes to the seemingly never-ending state of the United States-China “trade war,” which has seen each nation, in a sense, attempt to out do each other, in the form of a game of levying and retaliating to tariffs, it is becoming more apparent that these actions are increasingly more and more likely to impact both consumers and retail supply chains.

The trade war, in a sense, has become an extension of an ongoing “quest” for shippers to truly be ready for anything.

While the United States Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA) is not a done deal until it is signed off by Congress and signed into law by President Trump, that has not stopped business concerns from clamoring for that to happen. That was made clear in a letter sent to the members of Congress by more than 600 United States-based business groups and more than 30 industries.

A little while back, in this space, I wrote a blog with the following headline: “Is it time to be (a little) concerned about the economy?” Many of the points in that blog describe various economic factors that remain the same, but what appears to be different now are other things on the economic radar.