<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">You don&amp;rsquo;t often see close looks at how corporate culture influences a company&amp;rsquo;s supply chain, and you see insightful, perceptive pieces even less often. 
 
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You don&rsquo;t often see close looks at how corporate culture influences a company&rsquo;s supply chain, and you see insightful, perceptive pieces even less often.

<div>You don&amp;rsquo;t often see close looks at how corporate culture influences a company&amp;rsquo;s supply chain, and you see insightful, perceptive pieces even less often. The <a>profile of the IKEA</a> in the Oct. 3 edition of The New Yorker wasn&amp;rsquo;t really a supply chain article, but in diving into the history and odd culture of the home furnishings retailer, journalist Lauren Collins makes some important observations about the company far-flung presence and raises some very big questions about issues in supply chain and transportation today. Anyone who manages transportation, for instance, will identify with the point Collins makes about IKEA&amp;rsquo;s famously...

You don&rsquo;t often see close looks at how corporate culture influences a company&rsquo;s supply chain, and you see insightful, perceptive pieces even less often. The profile of the IKEA in the Oct. 3 edition of The New Yorker wasn&rsquo;t really a supply chain article, but in diving into the history and odd culture of the home furnishings retailer, journalist Lauren Collins makes some important observations about the company far-flung presence and raises some very big questions about issues in supply chain and transportation today. Anyone who manages transportation, for instance, will identify with the point Collins makes about IKEA&rsquo;s famously dense, no-waste packaging : &ldquo;The company&rsquo;s goal is to design products that can be packed as tightly as possible, minimizing damage and maximizing profit as they are transported over the oceans. It&rsquo;s motto: &lsquo;We hate air.&rsquo;&rdquo; Fair enough. But it gets more complicated when look at such issues as IKEA&rsquo;s impact on the environment, an issue of growing importance across the supply chain. She points to a book by Ellen Ruppel Shell, &ldquo;Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture,&rdquo; in asking how the &ldquo;throwaway culture&rdquo; built up by IKEA&rsquo;s combination of disposable and breathtakingly cheap goods: &ldquo;IKEA, she writes, has managed to perpetrate one of the great marketing gambits of the 21st century: the discreet transfer of costs from seller to buyer.&rdquo; That&rsquo;s especially important if you look at that sustainability issue. With its light, cheap furniture, marketing to an audience of mostly young, largely urban and within shouting distance of hip customers, IKEA certainly has the reputation of a business that embraces supply chain sustainability . But Collins suggests that depends on where you count the supply chain as beginning and ending. By building its stores as huge warehouses out on the fringes of urban areas, IKEA saves on fuel and emissions on truck moves that would go to smaller, more central sites. But that furniture still has to get to the consumer, and that means countless longer, individual trips by the consumers themselves. It almost sounds like carbon trading. -- Contact Paul Page at ppage@joc.com . Follow him on Twitter @PaulPage .

Maritime

Packaging IKEA's Supply Chain

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">The latest Global Port Tracker report warns of double-digit declines in imports for the rest of the year and no growth in early 2026. </div>

The latest Global Port Tracker report warns of double-digit declines in imports for the rest of the year and no growth in early 2026.

Feature image

<div class="phx-topic">US retailers are throttling back post-winter holiday restocking despite anticipating strong sales for the upcoming holiday season, planning to import less than 2 million TEUs monthly through March. The latest Global Port Tracker (GPT), published on Friday by Hackett Associates and the National Retail Federation (NRF), projected double-digit declines in imports for the rest of the year and no growth in early 2026, with volumes expected to fall steadily to 1.79 million TEUs in March. Months of frontloading explain the harsher-than-usual import slowdown for the final months of this year, but uncertain consumer sentiment and ever-changing US tariff policy are keeping retail inventories running lean. US container volumes, which initially rose earlier in the year thanks to cargo frontloading to avoid higher tariffs — surging 3.7% year over year in the first half — will end the year down 2.3% from 2024, according to the GPT. The Trump administration’s shifting tariff policy makes “market forecasting highly uncertain,” Ben Hackett, founder of Hackett Associates, said in a statement. “Our trade outlook is for a small decline in imports this year compared with 2024 and a further, larger decline in the first quarter of 2026,” he said. US imports this month and in December will plunge 14.4% and 19.9%, respectively, from a year ago, according to the GPT. The volumes compare poorly with the year-earlier period partly because cargo was frontloaded last year due to labor woes, notably a brief port strike along the US East and Gulf coasts. <h3>Strong sales, weak replenishing </h3>US retail sales this year will top $1 trillion, expanding approximately 3% to 4% from last year, according to a GPT analysis released Thursday. US consumer sentiment is weakening, however, with a preliminary November reading from the University of Michigan’s index showing weakness from October due to heightened concerns over the more than five-week government shutdown. In the face of mixed US economic signals and fluctuating tariff policy, US retailers have been playing it safe when it comes to restocking. US inventory-to-sales ratios for retailers have hovered between 1.28 and 1.32, according to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, suggesting that despite the frontloading of imports in the first half of the year, importers are keeping stocks lean. That strategy seems to extend into 2026, when GPT forecasts imports will fall to 1.98 million TEUs in January and 1.85 million TEUs in February.<div class="wrapper-narrow"><dynamic-object type="jocchartid" resource-id="8fd4291a-fe85-42be-bbea-ccd1a61de56d"></dynamic-object></div>The US-China trade deal announced last week spurred US retailers to move quickly on imports they need in the short term, but the effect was limited. The one-year halving of the so-called “fentanyl tax” on imports from China still leaves the tariff rate at approximately 47%, which is higher than the levies on imports from other Asian source countries tapped by US retailers. The GPT covers the ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach, Oakland, and Seattle and Tacoma on the West Coast; New York/New Jersey, the Port of Virginia, Charleston, Savannah, Port Everglades, Miami and Jacksonville on the East Coast; and Houston on the Gulf Coast. Contact Mark Szakonyi at <a href="mark.szakonyi@spglobal.com">mark.szakonyi@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

US retailers are throttling back post-winter holiday restocking despite anticipating strong sales for the upcoming holiday season, planning to import less than 2 million TEUs monthly through March. The latest Global Port Tracker (GPT), published on Friday by Hackett Associates and the National Retail Federation (NRF), projected double-digit declines in imports for the rest of the year and no growth in early 2026, with volumes expected to fall steadily to 1.79 million TEUs in March. Months of frontloading explain the harsher-than-usual import slowdown for the final months of this year, but uncertain consumer sentiment and ever-changing US tariff policy are keeping retail inventories running lean. US container volumes, which initially rose earlier in the year thanks to cargo frontloading to avoid higher tariffs — surging 3.7% year over year in the first half — will end the year down 2.3% from 2024, according to the GPT. The Trump administration’s shifting tariff policy makes “market forecasting highly uncertain,” Ben Hackett, founder of Hackett Associates, said in a statement. “Our trade outlook is for a small decline in imports this year compared with 2024 and a further, larger decline in the first quarter of 2026,” he said. US imports this month and in December will plunge 14.4% and 19.9%, respectively, from a year ago, according to the GPT. The volumes compare poorly with the year-earlier period partly because cargo was frontloaded last year due to labor woes, notably a brief port strike along the US East and Gulf coasts. Strong sales, weak replenishing US retail sales this year will top $1 trillion, expanding approximately 3% to 4% from last year, according to a GPT analysis released Thursday. US consumer sentiment is weakening, however, with a preliminary November reading from the University of Michigan’s index showing weakness from October due to heightened concerns over the more than five-week government shutdown. In the face of mixed US economic signals and fluctuating tariff policy, US retailers have been playing it safe when it comes to restocking. US inventory-to-sales ratios for retailers have hovered between 1.28 and 1.32, according to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, suggesting that despite the frontloading of imports in the first half of the year, importers are keeping stocks lean. That strategy seems to extend into 2026, when GPT forecasts imports will fall to 1.98 million TEUs in January and 1.85 million TEUs in February. The US-China trade deal announced last week spurred US retailers to move quickly on imports they need in the short term, but the effect was limited. The one-year halving of the so-called “fentanyl tax” on imports from China still leaves the tariff rate at approximately 47%, which is higher than the levies on imports from other Asian source countries tapped by US retailers. The GPT covers the ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach, Oakland, and Seattle and Tacoma on the West Coast; New York/New Jersey, the Port of Virginia, Charleston, Savannah, Port Everglades, Miami and Jacksonville on the East Coast; and Houston on the Gulf Coast. Contact Mark Szakonyi at  mark.szakonyi@spglobal.com .

Port News

Container lines

Trans-Atlantic

Trans-Pacific

North American ports

US retailers throttle back on imports amid uncertain consumer sentiment

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Daniel Elliott III told a webinar that the proposed $85 billion merger is “leaning more toward approval” because of the White House’s support. </div>

Daniel Elliott III told a webinar that the proposed $85 billion merger is “leaning more toward approval” because of the White House’s support.

<div class="phx-topic">A former chairman of the US Surface Transportation Board (STB) said the proposed merger between Union Pacific Railroad (UP) and Norfolk Southern Railway (NS) is likely to win regulatory approval, citing President Donald Trump’s influence and the political alignment of the current board. Daniel Elliott III, who served two nonconsecutive terms as STB chairman between 2009 and 2017, told a webinar Thursday that the $85 billion transaction is “leaning more toward approval” because of the administration’s support. The webinar was hosted by Breakthrough, a supply chain optimization and transportation advisory firm that advises major shippers on freight strategy and fuel management. “If this administration shows support for the merger, it’ll be very difficult for the STB to say, ‘Oh no, I’m not going to vote that way,’” Elliott said. “Right now, it’s leaning more towards approval of the merger because of the influence the most powerful man can have on just about anything that happens in Washington, DC.” UP wants to <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/up-ceo-pushing-to-file-formal-ns-merger-application-by-dec-1-6102362">file the merger application by Dec. 1</a>, although the STB is closed during the government shutdown and its work backlog grows by the day. The timeline for a final decision hasn’t been set, but most likely would not come until 2027. Trump voiced support for the deal after meeting UP CEO Jim Vena in the Oval Office in September. Union Pacific, interestingly, is listed among the corporate donors for the construction of the new 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom, a privately-funded initiative by the Trump administration that has caused controversy because it involved the demolition of the East Wing of the White House. The proposed UP-NS mega-merger has divided the rail industry. BNSF Railway and Canadian Pacific Kansas City have publicly opposed the deal, while Canadian National Railway and CSX Transportation have discussed protecting the interests of their shippers during the application review process. The US’ largest rail union, SMART-TD, and major intermodal partners including Hub Group and Knight Swift, support the transaction. Elliott said the growing partnership demonstrated recently between BNSF and CSX is aimed at showing regulators that the same benefits can be achieved without consolidation. “If this thing is approved, BNSF will be pretty much forced, I think, to merge with CSX at that point to remain on the same footing,” he said. “You don’t want to give anything away by letting Union Pacific have an advantage. That would mean that there are two railroads carrying about 95% of the freight traffic in the United States — kind of like the Canadians are with CN and CPKC.” <h3>STB nominees say they’ll be objective </h3>Meanwhile, at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing Thursday, two Trump nominees to the STB — Bruce Kloster and Michelle Schultz — pledged not to prejudge the UP-NS matter before reviewing the formal merger application. Kloster would be a new member to the board, while Schultz has been renominated for a second term after initially being nominated to the STB at the end of Trump’s first term. “My commitment to you and to this committee would be to be objective, to be fair, to be impartial, to do all the research and analysis to come up with the right decision regarding this merger,” said Kloster. “Absolutely, I will treat it with independence and impartiality.” Schultz echoed those comments. “In all matters that come before the board, I review the evidentiary record, the comments that are filed on the docket and the applicable law and statutes, and I will be prepared to do so in this case as well,” she said. Both nominees said the post-2001 STB merger rules, which put in place a stricter framework for major rail combinations, would govern their review. It will be the first test of those rules because the Canadian Pacific-Kansas City Southern transaction approved by the STB in 2023 was deemed a “minor” transaction. The stricter standards for major transactions require railroads to not merely avoid harming competition, but to demonstrate how a merger would enhance competition. The railroads must also submit detailed service plans to prevent disruption during an integration. Contact Ari Ashe at <a href="mailto:ari.ashe@spglobal.com">ari.ashe@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

A former chairman of the US Surface Transportation Board (STB) said the proposed merger between Union Pacific Railroad (UP) and Norfolk Southern Railway (NS) is likely to win regulatory approval, citing President Donald Trump’s influence and the political alignment of the current board. Daniel Elliott III, who served two nonconsecutive terms as STB chairman between 2009 and 2017, told a webinar Thursday that the $85 billion transaction is “leaning more toward approval” because of the administration’s support. The webinar was hosted by Breakthrough, a supply chain optimization and transportation advisory firm that advises major shippers on freight strategy and fuel management. “If this administration shows support for the merger, it’ll be very difficult for the STB to say, ‘Oh no, I’m not going to vote that way,’” Elliott said. “Right now, it’s leaning more towards approval of the merger because of the influence the most powerful man can have on just about anything that happens in Washington, DC.” UP wants to file the merger application by Dec. 1 , although the STB is closed during the government shutdown and its work backlog grows by the day. The timeline for a final decision hasn’t been set, but most likely would not come until 2027. Trump voiced support for the deal after meeting UP CEO Jim Vena in the Oval Office in September. Union Pacific, interestingly, is listed among the corporate donors for the construction of the new 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom, a privately-funded initiative by the Trump administration that has caused controversy because it involved the demolition of the East Wing of the White House. The proposed UP-NS mega-merger has divided the rail industry. BNSF Railway and Canadian Pacific Kansas City have publicly opposed the deal, while Canadian National Railway and CSX Transportation have discussed protecting the interests of their shippers during the application review process. The US’ largest rail union, SMART-TD, and major intermodal partners including Hub Group and Knight Swift, support the transaction. Elliott said the growing partnership demonstrated recently between BNSF and CSX is aimed at showing regulators that the same benefits can be achieved without consolidation. “If this thing is approved, BNSF will be pretty much forced, I think, to merge with CSX at that point to remain on the same footing,” he said. “You don’t want to give anything away by letting Union Pacific have an advantage. That would mean that there are two railroads carrying about 95% of the freight traffic in the United States — kind of like the Canadians are with CN and CPKC.” STB nominees say they’ll be objective Meanwhile, at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing Thursday, two Trump nominees to the STB — Bruce Kloster and Michelle Schultz — pledged not to prejudge the UP-NS matter before reviewing the formal merger application. Kloster would be a new member to the board, while Schultz has been renominated for a second term after initially being nominated to the STB at the end of Trump’s first term. “My commitment to you and to this committee would be to be objective, to be fair, to be impartial, to do all the research and analysis to come up with the right decision regarding this merger,” said Kloster. “Absolutely, I will treat it with independence and impartiality.” Schultz echoed those comments. “In all matters that come before the board, I review the evidentiary record, the comments that are filed on the docket and the applicable law and statutes, and I will be prepared to do so in this case as well,” she said. Both nominees said the post-2001 STB merger rules, which put in place a stricter framework for major rail combinations, would govern their review. It will be the first test of those rules because the Canadian Pacific-Kansas City Southern transaction approved by the STB in 2023 was deemed a “minor” transaction. The stricter standards for major transactions require railroads to not merely avoid harming competition, but to demonstrate how a merger would enhance competition. The railroads must also submit detailed service plans to prevent disruption during an integration. Contact Ari Ashe at ari.ashe@spglobal.com .

Rail News

Transport, Trade and Regulation News

North-American rail

Intermodal providers

Surface

Trump support likely to get UP-NS deal approved: ex-STB chairman

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">With its unit costs falling in the aftermath of its alliance with Hapag-Lloyd, the carrier is becoming more confident in discussions with customers on charging a premium for services that in the third quarter came with schedule reliability of about 90%.</div>

With its unit costs falling in the aftermath of its alliance with Hapag-Lloyd, the carrier is becoming more confident in discussions with customers on charging a premium for services that in the third quarter came with schedule reliability of about 90%.

<div class="phx-topic">Maersk is edging closer to charging a premium for providing industry-leading schedule reliability as the carrier unlocks unit cost savings across its Gemini Cooperation network. Maersk CEO Vincent Clerc said the carrier has “broken some efficiency frontier” as the Gemini network launched with partner Hapag-Lloyd in February was fully phased in on east-west trade lanes during the third quarter. “From a cost perspective, I think it’s a pretty significant lever that we have unlocked ... this has legs to continue into the coming quarters,” Clerc told analysts on <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/maersk-boosts-earnings-guidance-on-higher-container-volume-growth-6110653">Maersk’s third-quarter earnings</a> call Thursday. With its unit costs falling, Maersk is becoming more confident in discussions with customers about charging a premium for services that came with schedule reliability of about 90% in the third quarter. While conversations with customers around a premium are already underway, Clerc said the current on-time performance would need to be sustained before such a charge could be rolled out. “We need to be certain that we have a long enough track record that it unlocks value for them [shippers], that we can then capture some of that value for us,” he told analysts. “For instance, today every customer has buffer stock, and that reliability needs to unlock a reduction in that buffer stock,” Clerc added. “They need to trust that [Gemini] has weathered sufficient ups and downs and is steady [so] that they can take out some of that buffer stock.” <h3>Tapping into savings </h3>If shippers could pocket those savings, Clerc said Maersk would be able to tap into those savings in the form of a premium. “That process is starting. It’s a long-haul process, but certainly where we see some potential to capture value,” he noted. “Not everything [in Gemini] is fully in a place where value has been unlocked, but we are very positive with the discussions so far." Clerc said from a unit cost perspective, he would need one or two more quarters of data from Maersk and its rivals to see who was holding the upper hand. But the CEO was confident Maersk would remain in front. “What we can see with the numbers that have been released so far is that we’re making more progress on unit costs than what [competitors are] making, and we attribute this to Gemini, which is the big thing that we did to lower our unit costs,” he said. “We’re quite positive that with Gemini we’re opening a gap now that is going to be quite handy, especially in the current rate environment, and we will continue to work at making it as big as possible,” Clerc added. Contact Greg Knowler at <a href="mailto:greg.knowler@spglobal.com">greg.knowler@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

Maersk is edging closer to charging a premium for providing industry-leading schedule reliability as the carrier unlocks unit cost savings across its Gemini Cooperation network. Maersk CEO Vincent Clerc said the carrier has “broken some efficiency frontier” as the Gemini network launched with partner Hapag-Lloyd in February was fully phased in on east-west trade lanes during the third quarter. “From a cost perspective, I think it’s a pretty significant lever that we have unlocked ... this has legs to continue into the coming quarters,” Clerc told analysts on Maersk’s third-quarter earnings call Thursday. With its unit costs falling, Maersk is becoming more confident in discussions with customers about charging a premium for services that came with schedule reliability of about 90% in the third quarter. While conversations with customers around a premium are already underway, Clerc said the current on-time performance would need to be sustained before such a charge could be rolled out. “We need to be certain that we have a long enough track record that it unlocks value for them [shippers], that we can then capture some of that value for us,” he told analysts. “For instance, today every customer has buffer stock, and that reliability needs to unlock a reduction in that buffer stock,” Clerc added. “They need to trust that [Gemini] has weathered sufficient ups and downs and is steady [so] that they can take out some of that buffer stock.” Tapping into savings If shippers could pocket those savings, Clerc said Maersk would be able to tap into those savings in the form of a premium. “That process is starting. It’s a long-haul process, but certainly where we see some potential to capture value,” he noted. “Not everything [in Gemini] is fully in a place where value has been unlocked, but we are very positive with the discussions so far." Clerc said from a unit cost perspective, he would need one or two more quarters of data from Maersk and its rivals to see who was holding the upper hand. But the CEO was confident Maersk would remain in front. “What we can see with the numbers that have been released so far is that we’re making more progress on unit costs than what [competitors are] making, and we attribute this to Gemini, which is the big thing that we did to lower our unit costs,” he said. “We’re quite positive that with Gemini we’re opening a gap now that is going to be quite handy, especially in the current rate environment, and we will continue to work at making it as big as possible,” Clerc added. Contact Greg Knowler at greg.knowler@spglobal.com .

Container Shipping News

Value unlocked by Gemini will clear path for premium charge: Maersk CEO

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Car carriers and ro/ro operators had been left in limbo since the deal to postpone reciprocal US and Chinese port fees was announced during the meeting of presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in South Korea on Oct. 30.</div>

Car carriers and ro/ro operators had been left in limbo since the deal to postpone reciprocal US and Chinese port fees was announced during the meeting of presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in South Korea on Oct. 30.

<div class="phx-topic">Car carriers and roll-on/roll-off (ro/ro) operators are welcoming confirmation that their foreign-built ships are included in the US Trade Representative’s (USTR’s) year-long pause in port fees that begins Monday. The inclusion of foreign-built vehicle carriers and ro/ro operators in the 12-month suspension was made official when the USTR issued a formal notice Thursday inviting public comment on the suspension of port fees, which mainly target China-built, -operated and -flagged ships. In its notice, the USTR gave respondents less than 48 hours to comment, with the deadline of 5 p.m. EST Friday before the pause takes effect Monday. “We are pleased to see the USTR proposal to postpone the port fees,” Andreas Enger, CEO of Norwegian operator Höegh Autoliners, told the Journal of Commerce Friday. Enger said the USTR’s move will help make US automakers more competitive in the global market. Enger said the export of US-built cars “makes up a substantial share” of the carrier’s business. Florida-headquartered operator Accordia Shipping said the suspension will allow it to continue its ro/ro expansion plans, “at least for one more year.” “We will proceed with the acquisition of a ‘con/ro’ ship, which carries containers and ro/ro cargo,” the company’s legal affairs liaison, Farid Escobar, told the Journal of Commerce. The carrier’s trade consists almost entirely of outbound US exports to Caribbean destinations, including Haiti and the Dominican Republic, Escobar said. Accordia had faced a port fee bill of almost $1 million in the first year, which Escobar found hard for the USTR to justify given that the company’s operation “serves as a short-sea extension of US export infrastructure, supporting domestic manufacturing, regional commerce and supply-chain resilience.” <h3>Operators had planned measures to manage fees </h3>Car carrier and ro/ro operators had been left in limbo since the deal to postpone reciprocal US and Chinese port fees <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/us-china-suspend-reciprocal-port-fees-as-part-of-wider-trade-deal-6105849">was announced during the meeting of presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in South Korea on Oct. 30</a>. The original USTR Section 301 action to impose port levies not only targeted Chinese-owned or -operated ships, but all foreign-built vehicle carriers and ro/ros, whether China-built or not. The Oct. 30 announcement only mentioned a pause for China-linked vessels; there was no reference to vehicle carriers, an omission that left operators unsure whether the fees still applied to their ships. Carriers and US automobile and heavy machinery manufacturers said they faced significant cost increases and a shortage of shipping capacity after port fees were introduced on Oct. 14. Lasse Kristoffersen, president and CEO of Wallenius Wilhelmsen, the world’s biggest vehicle operator with approximately 130 ships, said the company had faced a $100 million port fee bill in the current quarter, although it hoped to mitigate the impact or pass the extra costs onto customers. Responding to the confirmation of the 12-month pause in fees, Wilhelmsen said it noted the US had issued “a formal notice postponing the implementation of Section 301 measures ... [but] ... will await a formal confirmation of the docket before we draw any conclusions.” Both Wallenius Wilhelmsen and Höegh Autoliners had drawn up contingencies to offset the impact of the US port fees. Höegh’s Enger said the company’s third-quarter dividend payment would be canceled to preserve cash after it faced a $60 million to $70 million hit from the port fees. He said the payment was suspended in response to the general uncertainty in trade policy and regulations, including the port fees. “We believe this uncertainty still exists, and we do not intend to reverse our decision on timing of payouts,” Enger said. Speaking during Wilhelmsen’s third-quarter results briefing on Nov. 5, Kristoffersen said the company had prepared 15 measures to manage the US port fees, including maximizing the deployment of its fleet of 11 US-flag ships on US calls. US-flag ships were exempt from the port fees. Contact Keith Wallis at <a href="mailto:keithwallis@hotmail.com">keithwallis@hotmail.com</a>.</div>

Car carriers and roll-on/roll-off (ro/ro) operators are welcoming confirmation that their foreign-built ships are included in the US Trade Representative’s (USTR’s) year-long pause in port fees that begins Monday. The inclusion of foreign-built vehicle carriers and ro/ro operators in the 12-month suspension was made official when the USTR issued a formal notice Thursday inviting public comment on the suspension of port fees, which mainly target China-built, -operated and -flagged ships. In its notice, the USTR gave respondents less than 48 hours to comment, with the deadline of 5 p.m. EST Friday before the pause takes effect Monday. “We are pleased to see the USTR proposal to postpone the port fees,” Andreas Enger, CEO of Norwegian operator Höegh Autoliners, told the Journal of Commerce Friday. Enger said the USTR’s move will help make US automakers more competitive in the global market. Enger said the export of US-built cars “makes up a substantial share” of the carrier’s business. Florida-headquartered operator Accordia Shipping said the suspension will allow it to continue its ro/ro expansion plans, “at least for one more year.” “We will proceed with the acquisition of a ‘con/ro’ ship, which carries containers and ro/ro cargo,” the company’s legal affairs liaison, Farid Escobar, told the Journal of Commerce. The carrier’s trade consists almost entirely of outbound US exports to Caribbean destinations, including Haiti and the Dominican Republic, Escobar said. Accordia had faced a port fee bill of almost $1 million in the first year, which Escobar found hard for the USTR to justify given that the company’s operation “serves as a short-sea extension of US export infrastructure, supporting domestic manufacturing, regional commerce and supply-chain resilience.” Operators had planned measures to manage fees Car carrier and ro/ro operators had been left in limbo since the deal to postpone reciprocal US and Chinese port fees was announced during the meeting of presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in South Korea on Oct. 30 . The original USTR Section 301 action to impose port levies not only targeted Chinese-owned or -operated ships, but all foreign-built vehicle carriers and ro/ros, whether China-built or not. The Oct. 30 announcement only mentioned a pause for China-linked vessels; there was no reference to vehicle carriers, an omission that left operators unsure whether the fees still applied to their ships. Carriers and US automobile and heavy machinery manufacturers said they faced significant cost increases and a shortage of shipping capacity after port fees were introduced on Oct. 14. Lasse Kristoffersen, president and CEO of Wallenius Wilhelmsen, the world’s biggest vehicle operator with approximately 130 ships, said the company had faced a $100 million port fee bill in the current quarter, although it hoped to mitigate the impact or pass the extra costs onto customers. Responding to the confirmation of the 12-month pause in fees, Wilhelmsen said it noted the US had issued “a formal notice postponing the implementation of Section 301 measures ... [but] ... will await a formal confirmation of the docket before we draw any conclusions.” Both Wallenius Wilhelmsen and Höegh Autoliners had drawn up contingencies to offset the impact of the US port fees. Höegh’s Enger said the company’s third-quarter dividend payment would be canceled to preserve cash after it faced a $60 million to $70 million hit from the port fees. He said the payment was suspended in response to the general uncertainty in trade policy and regulations, including the port fees. “We believe this uncertainty still exists, and we do not intend to reverse our decision on timing of payouts,” Enger said. Speaking during Wilhelmsen’s third-quarter results briefing on Nov. 5, Kristoffersen said the company had prepared 15 measures to manage the US port fees, including maximizing the deployment of its fleet of 11 US-flag ships on US calls. US-flag ships were exempt from the port fees. Contact Keith Wallis at keithwallis@hotmail.com .

Ro/ro cargo

Heavy-haul transport

Vehicle carriers, ro/ro operators relieved to be included in pause on US port fees

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">The ability to redeploy ships means that no trade operates in a bubble, but in the short term at least, each trade has its own supply and demand dynamics, notes Jeremy Masters. </div>

The ability to redeploy ships means that no trade operates in a bubble, but in the short term at least, each trade has its own supply and demand dynamics, notes Jeremy Masters.

<div class="phx-topic">There has been consternation in the container shipping industry as to why charter rates have remained reasonably firm when freight rates have been going down. It is natural to expect that rapidly declining freight rates would cause a pullback in demand for extra ships from carriers and thus put pressure on charter rates. <div class="wrapper-narrow float-right-element"><img src="/images/phoenix/6111259_0.1.jpg"></img></div>But the global market is, of course, made up of multiple trades. The ability to redeploy ships means that no trade operates in a bubble, but in the short term at least, each trade has its own supply/demand balance. Similarly, the charter market has several ranges of ship size and specifications, and the health of various sub-segments can vary. If we look at the individual interactions between trades and the specific ships required for those trades, we can start to see where the correlations are and why charter rates have remained generally firm up until now. References to freight rates going down usually refer to high-volume, long-haul trades. These trades are, however, served predominantly by large ships that are either carrier-owned or on longer-term charters to carriers. If we look at Alphaliner’s regular reports on chartering activity, the biggest size segment regularly reported is 7,500 TEUs to 13,000 TEUs. There has been an ongoing scarcity of these size ships available from non-operating owners (NOOs), and if carriers have a gap in their deep-sea coverage for these sizes, they tend to fix them for longer periods. Vessels over 13,000 TEUs are so seldom in the short-term charter market that they are not reported. Of course, there are some smaller chartered ships in the long-haul trades, but many are operated by the midsize/smaller-sized carriers, and their presence can be opportunistic. In the trades requiring the biggest ships, the short-term charter market is then of limited relevance and any search for a correlation versus freight rates will be unproductive. <h3>Smaller deep-sea trades </h3>If we switch to smaller deep-sea trades, regional trades and feeder trades (the latter two overlapping sometimes) predominantly requiring tonnage in the 2,000-TEU to 8,000-TEU range, there are a wide range of trades, each with its own dynamics. In these trades, there is a much wider variety of carriers and a higher dependence from both big and small carriers to use the elasticity of the charter market to plug supply gaps in existing services and to launch new services. There is also a much wider range in the age and efficiency of ships in this segment. The secondhand market is much more active, and the pipeline of newbuildings has been a lot more modest. What has been pivotal on charter ship supply (and thus price) has been the intervention by carriers — particularly Mediterranean Shipping Co. and CMA CGM — to buy NOO tonnage in the smaller/mid-sizes to operate in smaller trades. In April, Alphaliner reported that between August 2020 and March 2025, 3.7 million TEUs of NOO capacity was sold to end-users, and the net loss after newbuildings and some small purchases from end-users was 2.3 million TEUs. Suffice it to say, the supply side of the charter market has become inelastic at the same time carriers have been constrained in their ordering of new tonnage in these ship sizes. The result has been carriers chasing a limited supply of ships on the charter market and resorting to upgrading/downgrading the ship size they would accept, thus explaining why many sub-categories of size have remained firm at the same time. No disconnect then, just a change in supply that favored a firm charter market. <h3>Catalyst for short-term charter rates </h3>What will be the catalyst for short-term charter rates in the smaller sizes taking a major dip? Newbuild orders are going up in the smaller sizes, but as immediate supply remains constrained, a major dip in the short-term charter market will not happen unless there is a drop in demand in the smaller trades. These trades are, however, not immune from what is happening in the bigger trades. One of the options for carriers in dealing with overcapacity will be to cascade ships at the lower end of the big ship capacity range to midsize trades in the next tier, and so on. This can hit the short-term charter market because more owned/long-termed chartered ships will allow the return of short-term charters. And because of the oversupply of slots, low-rate contagion will also be exported, forcing carriers to reassess participation in trades requiring expensive charters. The correlation between freight markets and short-term charter markets may become a lot clearer in the coming months then — but in a negative way. Jeremy Masters is managing director of Shipping Masters. Contact him at <a href="mailto:jeremy@shippingmastershk.com">jeremy@shippingmastershk.com</a>. </div>

There has been consternation in the container shipping industry as to why charter rates have remained reasonably firm when freight rates have been going down. It is natural to expect that rapidly declining freight rates would cause a pullback in demand for extra ships from carriers and thus put pressure on charter rates. But the global market is, of course, made up of multiple trades. The ability to redeploy ships means that no trade operates in a bubble, but in the short term at least, each trade has its own supply/demand balance. Similarly, the charter market has several ranges of ship size and specifications, and the health of various sub-segments can vary. If we look at the individual interactions between trades and the specific ships required for those trades, we can start to see where the correlations are and why charter rates have remained generally firm up until now. References to freight rates going down usually refer to high-volume, long-haul trades. These trades are, however, served predominantly by large ships that are either carrier-owned or on longer-term charters to carriers. If we look at Alphaliner’s regular reports on chartering activity, the biggest size segment regularly reported is 7,500 TEUs to 13,000 TEUs. There has been an ongoing scarcity of these size ships available from non-operating owners (NOOs), and if carriers have a gap in their deep-sea coverage for these sizes, they tend to fix them for longer periods. Vessels over 13,000 TEUs are so seldom in the short-term charter market that they are not reported. Of course, there are some smaller chartered ships in the long-haul trades, but many are operated by the midsize/smaller-sized carriers, and their presence can be opportunistic. In the trades requiring the biggest ships, the short-term charter market is then of limited relevance and any search for a correlation versus freight rates will be unproductive. Smaller deep-sea trades If we switch to smaller deep-sea trades, regional trades and feeder trades (the latter two overlapping sometimes) predominantly requiring tonnage in the 2,000-TEU to 8,000-TEU range, there are a wide range of trades, each with its own dynamics. In these trades, there is a much wider variety of carriers and a higher dependence from both big and small carriers to use the elasticity of the charter market to plug supply gaps in existing services and to launch new services. There is also a much wider range in the age and efficiency of ships in this segment. The secondhand market is much more active, and the pipeline of newbuildings has been a lot more modest. What has been pivotal on charter ship supply (and thus price) has been the intervention by carriers — particularly Mediterranean Shipping Co. and CMA CGM — to buy NOO tonnage in the smaller/mid-sizes to operate in smaller trades. In April, Alphaliner reported that between August 2020 and March 2025, 3.7 million TEUs of NOO capacity was sold to end-users, and the net loss after newbuildings and some small purchases from end-users was 2.3 million TEUs. Suffice it to say, the supply side of the charter market has become inelastic at the same time carriers have been constrained in their ordering of new tonnage in these ship sizes. The result has been carriers chasing a limited supply of ships on the charter market and resorting to upgrading/downgrading the ship size they would accept, thus explaining why many sub-categories of size have remained firm at the same time. No disconnect then, just a change in supply that favored a firm charter market. Catalyst for short-term charter rates What will be the catalyst for short-term charter rates in the smaller sizes taking a major dip? Newbuild orders are going up in the smaller sizes, but as immediate supply remains constrained, a major dip in the short-term charter market will not happen unless there is a drop in demand in the smaller trades. These trades are, however, not immune from what is happening in the bigger trades. One of the options for carriers in dealing with overcapacity will be to cascade ships at the lower end of the big ship capacity range to midsize trades in the next tier, and so on. This can hit the short-term charter market because more owned/long-termed chartered ships will allow the return of short-term charters. And because of the oversupply of slots, low-rate contagion will also be exported, forcing carriers to reassess participation in trades requiring expensive charters. The correlation between freight markets and short-term charter markets may become a lot clearer in the coming months then — but in a negative way. Jeremy Masters is managing director of Shipping Masters. Contact him at jeremy@shippingmastershk.com .

In search of the disconnect between freight rates and charter rates

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The world of LTL is slow to embrace change. Business anachronisms permeate current supply chain processes. These vestiges of the way things used to work define the LTL freight transportation procurement process of many modern shippers.David Knuth, logistics specialist at IEWC, a global supplier of cable and wire based in Wisconsin, is happy to have modernized the RFP process, automating the entire LTL bidding procedure with Bid$ense, SMC³’s automated truckload and LTL freight transportation sourcing solution. But when prompted, he can still recall what once was.In his previous job, a large part of his duties were consumed by creating an intermodal bid package for carriers. In a spreadsheet, Knuth detailed the company’s volumes lane by lane, taking care to delete any errant keystrokes or misleading data. He would then email out the information to each carrier, taking time to respond to detailed technical questions about the spreadsheet data. Finally, he had to compile all the results, create an algorithm that would compare the carriers on each lane, and award the business.“It was a huge undertaking. It took about four months to do,” Knuth said of the old process. “It was almost a full-time job for that part of the year, every year.”In his new job at IEWC, he sat down with Bid$ense on day one and was amazed at the capabilities. Knuth had never before used a bid tool. SMC³’s latest versions of Bid$ense automate the process even further, taking truckload and LTL RFPs entirely online. The tool draws on RFP best-practices protocols to streamline the bidding communication process, enabling bidding carriers to respond accurately and promptly to shipper requests. The solution also does all the distribution work automatically, electronically submitting shipper bid data to carriers based on their actual service capabilities and performance records. Carriers are alerted with timely prompts for RFP deliverables, so shippers aren’t waiting by the phone for responses.Another benefit of automating the process is the data-cleansing assistance. When Knuth sent spreadsheets to carriers, data errors might cloud the bidding process; he might have to resend data or simply accept a price that did not truly reflect the costs of doing business. Data cleansing is incredibly beneficial, he said.The spreadsheet technique also made bidding analysis an onerous task. Since Bid$ense automates and streamlines the entire RFP process, intensive examination is now simple. SMC³ knows that each bid has more than one best outcome. With uniform responses from each carrier, shippers can quickly rank results and create an unlimited quantity of what-if scenarios to make the optimal procurement decision.Jesse Burnett of Central Garden &amp; Pet experiences many of the same benefits. Founded in 1980, Central Garden &amp; Pet has spent the last three decades growing from a small garden supply company to a provider of a range of products from dog chews and bird seed to soil supplements and natural insecticides. For much of its life, the company shipped these disparate goods via LTL and truckload carriers to retailers throughout the country, relying on each business unit to negotiate directly with their freight transportation providers. This arrangement worked fairly well for a small company, but as Central Garden &amp; Pet expanded, leadership decided to consolidate decision making.Burnett helped centralize the transportation decision making in 2015 with SMC³’s Bid$ense. Before Bid$ense, every business unit operated independently as far as negotiating with carriers.“There were a lot of different things just floating around,” he said. “We didn’t have master agreements in place; no national pricing at all. The pricing from carriers was just all over the place, depending on where you were.”The transformations he saw with Bid$ense were immediate. Burnett has been using the tool about every other year since its implementation at the company. Central Garden and Pet’s $19.6 million 2019 LTL bid saved the company just more than 9 percent when compared to its historical average. For Burnett, though, bid automation extends far beyond savings.“We knew that we weren’t getting the best pricing offer from our carriers just because nothing was centralized,” he continued. “We knew that if we combined everything from all these business units and paired it with one corporate offering, then it would drive some cost benefit with it.”When the company initially decided to centralize bid procurement, executives researched a number of different methodologies and technologies. In the end, though, Burnett found that Bid$ense was both widespread and well known, and that his carrier partners already knew how to use the application. Burnett also highlighted the data-cleansing process as a major benefit, saying the rigorous process ensures that carriers always return the best price.“It definitely has helped drive savings,” he said. “Any time you go out there and you drive that competitiveness with the carriers and they know they’re in a bid environment, it seems to sharpen their pencils.”Transportation procurement is an integral part of the modern supply chain. With Bid$ense, shippers can develop a strategic implementation plan that saves them time and money, but also helps them create strong relationships with their carrier partners. These carriers appreciate the solution’s data-cleansing process; when carriers receive a complete shipment history and future volume forecast, they don’t have to guess on pricing. Carriers that receive more data from shippers get a complete picture of that shipper’s freight, allowing them to accurately plan instead of simply preparing for the worst-case scenario. Clean data presented through an automated system can lead to both bigger shipment savings and a lasting partnership between carrier and customer.Whether customers are looking to streamline over-the-road transportation bidding by automating the RFP process or create an entirely new, centralized sourcing process, Bid$ense has the analytical horsepower to get the job done.SMC³ 2020 Customer Case Study

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Shippers save money, time with automated transportation bidding tools

If there’s one immutable truth in the world of logistics, it’s this: LTL is an inherently complex form of transportation. Tariffs, rates, DIM weights, transit times — it’s enough to confuse even seasoned logistics professionals. The solution to this knowledge gap has historically been on-the-job training or university supply chain education, but for a variety of reasons there is now a pressing need for third-party, remote LTL training that prepares logistics workers for transportation success. Global Scope Can Overlook Local Intricacies In the past, professionals looking to move into a supply chain career learned about the basics of supply chain from universities. However, many of these college supply chain programs are now global in scope, focusing on worldwide supply chain management instead of the intricacies of specialized domestic transportation. And even these programs, which used to be widespread, are becoming less common. LTL is not an industry of broad-brush strokes; supply chain professionals really need a pointillistic understanding of the logistics of LTL in order to excel in the industry. Accelerating Need for Dedicated LTL Education This lack of specified training put the onus on employers to prepare new hires with the LTL knowledge needed to do their jobs. Dedicated LTL study is a necessity, not a luxury. At the same time, changes in LTL and the broader supply chain world are accelerating. The reliance on e-commerce has ballooned since the start of the pandemic, and last-mile LTL shipments and related e-commerce strains on the supply chain won’t diminish once social distancing abates. That genie isn’t going back into the bottle. So supply chain employers need logistics workers that are fully versed in all aspects of the industry, ready to solve unique shipping and delivery problems based on their extensive supply chain knowledge But why care about LTL? It’s been reported that some shippers in today’s world are no longer concerned with what mode is used to ship their goods. A Multimodal Approach Ensures On-Time Delivery This mode agnosticism means supply chain stakeholders have to be well versed in all modes of transportation. As unforeseen weather events and other disruptions, such as protests, become more common, savvy logistics employees will need to be armed with familiarity of all modes, not just the most popular, to ensure that freight is delivered on time, without damage, and in the most financially expedient way possible. Offerings like SMC³’s LTL online education courses cover a wide range of topics from LTL basics and operations to more advanced concepts like pricing analytics and transportation law. The company also has plans to continually refresh content, adding new expert presenters and taking the feedback of students to make the courses even better as time goes on. Learn more about&nbsp;<a href="https://logisticstrainingcenter.com/smc3-courses/" rel="noreferrer" class="joc_admin__link">SMC³’s LTL Online Education program</a>&nbsp;and view the 2021 hybrid schedule, featuring live industry experts,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.smc3.com/onlinelearning2021/" rel="noreferrer" class="joc_admin__link">here.</a>

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Filling the Supply Chain Education Gap with LTL Education Courses

In 1995, we began operations with a clear vision: to grow alongside Mexico and connect the world through our terminals. Our priority has always been to deliver excellence in service, foster economic development, and strengthen our communities. We firmly believe that progress is not only measured in tons of cargo moved, but in the opportunities we create. _______________________________________________________________ This year marks a significant milestone: SSA Marine Mexico celebrates 30 years of presence in the country, having established itself from day one as the leading port operator nationwide. Over the past three decades, we have built a legacy of reliability, innovation, and commitment to Mexico’s growth. Our journey has been defined by continuous evolution and a steadfast dedication to our mission. SSA Marine México currently operates in six of the country’s most important ports: Cozumel, Lazaro Cardenas, Manzanillo, Progreso, Tuxpan, and Veracruz. Additionally, we have signed a concession to operate a new multipurpose terminal in Guaymas, Sonora, expanding our footprint to the north of the country. We serve a wide range of segments including containers, general cargo, automobiles, cruise ships, hydrocarbons, and asphalt. As part of this ongoing commitment, SSA Marine Mexico continues to strengthen its infrastructure and capabilities. International trade remains a key driver of global economic growth, and we are proud to support this momentum. Through our continuous improvement strategy, we invest in cutting-edge technology and equipment to deliver more efficient and competitive services, contributing to the success of Mexican businesses. •	Manzanillo, Colima- Specialized Container Terminal I: On October 13, we celebrated the arrival of two new STS (Ship To Shore) Super Post Panamax dockside cranes. This $21.2 million USD investment significantly boosts our operational capacity, streamlining cargo reception and delivery processes. In line with our modernization efforts, we will also retire four of our oldest cranes, paving the way for a more sustainable and technologically advanced fleet that meets the evolving demands of international trade. With these upgrades, SSA Marine México now operates a total of 16 cranes along our 1,350-meter dock, reaffirming our position as a national benchmark in port <span class="joc_admin__inline-image joc_admin__inline-image-aspect-ratio-4_3 joc_admin__inline-image-position-left joc_admin__inline-image-size-large" data-figure-size="large" data-figure-position="left" data-figure-aspect-ratio="4:3"><img src="/content-assets/1760982635607_Manzanillo.jpg" alt="Image provided by SSA Marine" class="joc_admin__inline-image-inherit"> •	As for the Multipurpose Terminal and Specialized Facility, also in Manzanillo, Colima, improvement and conditioning works are planned, along with the acquisition of four E-RTG (Electric Rubber-Tyred Gantry) cranes to enhance operational efficiency and sustainability. •	At our Automobile and General Cargo Terminal in the port of Veracruz, we continue to lead with specialized value-added services that support our clients’ growth. Recent investments include a new washing cabin and a general cargo warehouse, increasing indoor storage capacity by 67%. •	Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan – Specialized Automobile Terminal: we are working on the development of an additional 4-hectare storage space within our bonded area and a 10-hectare Vehicle Distribution Center (VDC). These enhancements, along with ongoing personnel and system improvements, will reinforce our leadership in automotive handling across the Mexican Pacific coast.<span class="joc_admin__inline-image joc_admin__inline-image-aspect-ratio-4_3 joc_admin__inline-image-position-left joc_admin__inline-image-size-large" data-figure-size="large" data-figure-position="left" data-figure-aspect-ratio="4:3"><img src="/content-assets/1760982742240_Lazaro.jpg" alt="Image provided by SSA Marine" class="joc_admin__inline-image-inherit"> Through these strategic investments, SSA Marine Mexico reaffirms its commitment to the sustained growth of Mexico’s foreign trade. By expanding capacity, modernizing infrastructure, and diversifying services, we continue to strengthen the country’s competitiveness in global logistics. Today, we celebrate three decades of dedication, innovation, and leadership, with deep gratitude to our employees, clients, and partners for being part of this incredible journey. LINK: https://www.ssamarine.mx/<span class="joc_admin__inline-image joc_admin__inline-image-aspect-ratio-16_9 joc_admin__inline-image-position-left joc_admin__inline-image-size-small" data-figure-size="small" data-figure-position="left" data-figure-aspect-ratio="16:9"><img src="/content-assets/1760982787360_SSA%20Marine%20Mexico%20logo%20150pxW.png" alt="" class="joc_admin__inline-image-inherit">

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SSA Marine Mexico: 30 years growing together.

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