<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Hollywood may not buy it, but Washington and Tokyo are scripting a titillating suspense drama. In fa</div>

Hollywood may not buy it, but Washington and Tokyo are scripting a titillating suspense drama. In fa

<div>Hollywood may not buy it, but Washington and Tokyo are scripting a titillating suspense drama. In fact, it's a twin feature. One hair-raiser is dubbed Super 301, the other the Structural Impediments Initiative. It's playing in many local papers, in this country and abroad. At stake is a Japanese prime ministership, a senator's re-election and billions of dollars in sales, among other things.The heart of the matter is the chronic $50 billion U.S. trade deficit with Japan. It threatens to poison relations between the world's two largest industrial powers. The U.S. Congress is holding the vial.The Bush administration wants Japan...

Hollywood may not buy it, but Washington and Tokyo are scripting a titillating suspense drama. In fact, it's a twin feature. One hair-raiser is dubbed Super 301, the other the Structural Impediments Initiative. It's playing in many local papers, in this country and abroad. At stake is a Japanese prime ministership, a senator's re-election and billions of dollars in sales, among other things. The heart of the matter is the chronic $50 billion U.S. trade deficit with Japan. It threatens to poison relations between the world's two largest industrial powers. The U.S. Congress is holding the vial.The Bush administration wants Japan to help pare the deficit, although the administration, it's widely held, might itself help by slashing the budget deficit. But the focus for now is on what Japan can do for us. And it seems that time for Japan to act is running out. By June 17, the Bush administration is to decide whether Japan has done enough to open its supercomputer, satellite and wood products markets to imports. If it finds that Japan has not, the administration could announce trade reprisals. That's the Super 301 scenario, but it offers even more of a scare. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., a senior Senate Finance Committee member, has threatened to introduce legislation to force U.S. reprisals, especially if Japan does not open its wood products market. Sen. Baucus, who is up for re-election this year, is making Super 301 and wood products a very big issue. Still, U.S. reprisals seem unlikely. Japan probably will make just enough concessions to ward them off. It almost certainly will buy a few U.S. supercomputers. It also may concede a gradual cut in wood product tariffs, even though Japan's wood products industry is as politically powerful as it is economically inefficient. Letting in U.S. satellites apparently poses more of a problem. The Japanese government regards developing its own commercial satellite program as basic to Japan's status as a technological power. However, Japanese concessions in two of the three sectors just might be acceptable to the United States. Now for the Structural Impediments Initiatives, the other Washington-Tokyo production. The Bush administration has drawn up a list of economic reforms for Japan and it is heady stuff. Japan, U.S. officials say, should undertake land reform, facilitate more big retail outlets, alter inter-corporate relationships, strengthen antitrust policies, expedite the patents process and spend more on public works, among other things. For their part, the Japanese suggest the United States might cut its budget deficit, do more to encourage private savings, investment and exports and discourage a short-term profit mentality. U.S. officials report some progress in the Structural Impediments Initiative talks, but nowhere near enough to meet the objectives of the talks: Japan is beefing up its antitrust agency and patent office, proposing import tax incentives and may impose a new farm land tax. The talks are due to reach a critical point April 2 and 3, when they will resume here. Shortly thereafter, the administration is to release an ''interim" report on the results of the talks. If the talks fail to produce something credible next month, Congress, or at least some vocal members of it, may seek to reclassify some of the issues in the Structural Impediments Initiative talks as unfair trade practices subject to retaliation under Super 301. There is a certain timing on their side. By April 30, the administration must report to Congress whether it wants to add any more foreign trade barriers to its Super 301 negotiating process. Converting a Structural Impediments Initiative issue to Super 301 could raise the ante. It more clearly suggests U.S. reprisals if Japan balks at reform. But some administration officials caution that SII issues do not aptly fit the Super 301 category because they are not explicit trade barriers. Whatever the U.S. tactic, the outlook for substantial Japanese reform is very fuzzy. Most U.S. suggestions raise serious political questions for Japanese Prime Minister Toshiko Kaifu. Take land reform. Over half of Japan's families are said to own land. They would react to any measure devaluing their holdings. Those Japanese inter-corporate ties, known as "keiretsu," are largely beyond the Japanese government's authority. Much more public works spending? Japan is already concerned with its recent rise in inflation. Repeal the retail stores law? That would risk alienating Japan's shopkeepers. Mr. Kaifu recognizes that if he does too much or too little, his days as prime minister might be numbered. By July the Bush administration is to write a "final" report on the Structural Impediments Initiative. But that seems a misnomer. Those talks are likely to go on for years. In a broad sense, they already have.

SCRIPTING A TITILLATING DRAMA

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Rapidly growing occurrences of cargo theft in the US have compelled two early-stage technology companies to use data around truckload movements to assist law enforcement.</div>

Rapidly growing occurrences of cargo theft in the US have compelled two early-stage technology companies to use data around truckload movements to assist law enforcement.

Feature image

<div class="phx-topic">Two technology providers catering to the US truckload market said Friday they are partnering to tackle cargo and equipment theft. The companies, Truck Parking Club and GenLogs, will connect Truck Parking Club’s extensive data on hundreds of thousands of commercial vehicles and their movements with GenLogs’ network of roadside sensors tracking equipment location. The goal of the partnership is to assist law enforcement investigations into freight theft. “By joining forces with GenLogs, we’re leveraging our combined capabilities to assist law enforcement and ultimately make our locations more secure,” Evan Shelley, CEO of Truck Parking Club, said in a statement. Truck Parking Club helps drivers and carriers reserve parking through a network of more than 1,000 properties, including trucking companies, repair shops, trailer leasing sites, truck stops and standalone truck parking operators. GenLogs, whose core product leverages its sensor network to give freight brokers insight into available truckload capacity, in November began <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/startup-technology-vendor-takes-aim-at-cargo-theft-with-free-tracking-service-5820781">providing a free tracking service</a> to help shippers, carriers and brokers locate stolen cargo or assets. The issue of cargo theft across the US trucking and intermodal markets has become so widespread that a bipartisan coalition of <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/congress-makes-fresh-attempt-to-target-cargo-theft-in-us-5982118">federal lawmakers introduced legislation</a> in April to combat incidents of theft from truck trailers and shipping containers that have exploded in frequency and sophistication in the last three years. The Combating Organized Retail Crime Act of 2025 (CORCA), sponsored by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nevada) along with several House members, would establish a retail and supply chain crime coordination center within the US Department of Homeland Security. CargoNet, which tracks cargo crime, said in late March that cargo theft rose 27% year over year in 2024. Contact Eric Johnson at <a href="mailto:eric.johnson@spglobal.com">eric.johnson@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

Two technology providers catering to the US truckload market said Friday they are partnering to tackle cargo and equipment theft. The companies, Truck Parking Club and GenLogs, will connect Truck Parking Club’s extensive data on hundreds of thousands of commercial vehicles and their movements with GenLogs’ network of roadside sensors tracking equipment location. The goal of the partnership is to assist law enforcement investigations into freight theft. “By joining forces with GenLogs, we’re leveraging our combined capabilities to assist law enforcement and ultimately make our locations more secure,” Evan Shelley, CEO of Truck Parking Club, said in a statement. Truck Parking Club helps drivers and carriers reserve parking through a network of more than 1,000 properties, including trucking companies, repair shops, trailer leasing sites, truck stops and standalone truck parking operators. GenLogs, whose core product leverages its sensor network to give freight brokers insight into available truckload capacity, in November began providing a free tracking service to help shippers, carriers and brokers locate stolen cargo or assets. The issue of cargo theft across the US trucking and intermodal markets has become so widespread that a bipartisan coalition of federal lawmakers introduced legislation in April to combat incidents of theft from truck trailers and shipping containers that have exploded in frequency and sophistication in the last three years. The Combating Organized Retail Crime Act of 2025 (CORCA), sponsored by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nevada) along with several House members, would establish a retail and supply chain crime coordination center within the US Department of Homeland Security. CargoNet, which tracks cargo crime, said in late March that cargo theft rose 27% year over year in 2024. Contact Eric Johnson at eric.johnson@spglobal.com .

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North-American rail

Logistics Technology News

Truckload technology providers partner on cargo theft initiative

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Paper and forest product exports climbed for the first time in more than five years in 2024, but various headwinds will challenge demand in 2025.</div>

Paper and forest product exports climbed for the first time in more than five years in 2024, but various headwinds will challenge demand in 2025.

<div class="phx-topic">Hopes that US paper and forest product exports will see another year of growth were fraying even before the biggest buyer, China, slapped 125% tariffs on inbound shipments. In March, the Chinese government suspended imports of US logs due to the alleged detection of forest pests such as bark beetles and longhorn beetles in shipments. That came just weeks before the back-and-forth tariff standoff between the US and China battered the industry in April. “All of our clients have had their Chinese orders either canceled going forward or everything on the water has been rerouted to Vietnam or back to the US, so it’s a bit of a bloodbath right now. It’s brutal,” said Stephen Zambo, CEO of AGL Group, a forwarder specializing in paper and forest products. While Vietnam has absorbed some of the redirected volume, Zambo said the country lacks the infrastructure and consumer demand to match China’s appetite for US forest products used in its own internal construction and homebuilding. <div class="wrapper-narrow"><dynamic-object type="jocchartid" resource-id="9fa0ca3d-527f-46c8-b8ee-758d5cc09f3e"></dynamic-object></div>Total containerized export volumes grew 5.3% year over year in 2024, led by an 18% jump in shipments from the Port of Savannah, which handles nearly one-third of all outbound paper and forest products, according to PIERS, a sister product of the Journal of Commerce within S&amp;P Global. Those results came after several consecutive annual declines that left volumes 31.5% lower than in 2019. Mainland China accounted for 29.1% of US paper and forest product exports last year, followed by India (7.4%), Vietnam (6.2%) and Japan (3.9%). <h3>Tied to the US economy </h3>Forest product exports are particularly sensitive to the US housing market, according to Zambo and industry economists. Many American hardwood logs and lumber are exported to China and Vietnam for use in cabinetry, flooring and furniture, products that are then often imported back to the US. When demand weakens for the finished goods, so too does demand for the raw materials used to produce them. Recent housing data points to additional headwinds in 2025. US housing starts fell 11.4% in March from the month prior to an annualized rate of 1.32 million units, the steepest decline since April 2020 during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to federal statistics. Approximately 60% of residential construction companies surveyed by the National Association of Home Builders said suppliers have already raised prices or announced increases in material costs due to tariffs, with input prices rising 6.3% on average. “This will likely only add to existing affordability challenges, which, combined with an expected slowdown in the economy, will weigh on the homebuilding industry over the coming quarters,” TD Bank economist Andrew Foran wrote in an <a href="https://economics.td.com/us-housing-starts-and-permits">April 17 investor note</a>. The American Forest and Paper Association (AF&amp;PA) is also closely monitoring the Trump administration’s evolving trade policy toward Canada and Mexico, warning that new or increased tariffs could harm an already fragile sector. The group said that turning wood chips into a paper product requires several steps that occur in different facilities in Canada, Mexico and the US in an integrated cross-border supply chain. Paper products are duty-free for now, if they meet the rules of origin established under the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) negotiated in 2020. But the AF&amp;PA remains concerned about the effects of tariffs on certain raw material inputs from Canada that are involved in the manufacturing process. Contact Ari Ashe at <a href="mailto:ari.ashe@spglobal.com">ari.ashe@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

Hopes that US paper and forest product exports will see another year of growth were fraying even before the biggest buyer, China, slapped 125% tariffs on inbound shipments. In March, the Chinese government suspended imports of US logs due to the alleged detection of forest pests such as bark beetles and longhorn beetles in shipments. That came just weeks before the back-and-forth tariff standoff between the US and China battered the industry in April. “All of our clients have had their Chinese orders either canceled going forward or everything on the water has been rerouted to Vietnam or back to the US, so it’s a bit of a bloodbath right now. It’s brutal,” said Stephen Zambo, CEO of AGL Group, a forwarder specializing in paper and forest products. While Vietnam has absorbed some of the redirected volume, Zambo said the country lacks the infrastructure and consumer demand to match China’s appetite for US forest products used in its own internal construction and homebuilding. Total containerized export volumes grew 5.3% year over year in 2024, led by an 18% jump in shipments from the Port of Savannah, which handles nearly one-third of all outbound paper and forest products, according to PIERS, a sister product of the Journal of Commerce within S&P Global. Those results came after several consecutive annual declines that left volumes 31.5% lower than in 2019. Mainland China accounted for 29.1% of US paper and forest product exports last year, followed by India (7.4%), Vietnam (6.2%) and Japan (3.9%). Tied to the US economy Forest product exports are particularly sensitive to the US housing market, according to Zambo and industry economists. Many American hardwood logs and lumber are exported to China and Vietnam for use in cabinetry, flooring and furniture, products that are then often imported back to the US. When demand weakens for the finished goods, so too does demand for the raw materials used to produce them. Recent housing data points to additional headwinds in 2025. US housing starts fell 11.4% in March from the month prior to an annualized rate of 1.32 million units, the steepest decline since April 2020 during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to federal statistics. Approximately 60% of residential construction companies surveyed by the National Association of Home Builders said suppliers have already raised prices or announced increases in material costs due to tariffs, with input prices rising 6.3% on average. “This will likely only add to existing affordability challenges, which, combined with an expected slowdown in the economy, will weigh on the homebuilding industry over the coming quarters,” TD Bank economist Andrew Foran wrote in an April 17 investor note . The American Forest and Paper Association (AF&PA) is also closely monitoring the Trump administration’s evolving trade policy toward Canada and Mexico, warning that new or increased tariffs could harm an already fragile sector. The group said that turning wood chips into a paper product requires several steps that occur in different facilities in Canada, Mexico and the US in an integrated cross-border supply chain. Paper products are duty-free for now, if they meet the rules of origin established under the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) negotiated in 2020. But the AF&PA remains concerned about the effects of tariffs on certain raw material inputs from Canada that are involved in the manufacturing process. Contact Ari Ashe at ari.ashe@spglobal.com .

Maritime

Breakbulk News

Container Shipping News

Trans-Pacific

US forest product export rebound unlikely to repeat amid tariff war

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">The broader goal of NYSHEX’s new container index is to provide rate information that will support the use of hedging tools for shippers, NVOs and carriers against increased volatility. </div>

The broader goal of NYSHEX’s new container index is to provide rate information that will support the use of hedging tools for shippers, NVOs and carriers against increased volatility.

<div class="phx-topic">The New York Shipping Exchange (NYSHEX) has unveiled two new indexes covering inbound US container trades that are designed to underpin index-based freight contracts between shippers and their shipping line and forwarder partners. The free-to-use indexes will initially provide rate levels on the eastbound trans-Pacific and westbound trans-Atlantic lanes, with data provided by a panel of carriers and forwarders that give NYSHEX access to the price a shipper actually paid to be loaded on a vessel the week prior. That methodology, NYSHEX said this week, will be a differentiator for the index — called the NYFI — over the range of existing container freight rate indexes already in use in the market. Those indexes include the Shanghai Container Freight Index, the Drewry World Container Index, the Xeneta Shipping Index, the Freightos Baltic Index and Platts Container Index. The NYFI was developed in conjunction with the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), which owns the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), with ICE <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/nyshex-says-will-launch-ocean-freight-rate-indexes-next-year-5820643">part of an investment into NYSHEX</a> last November. NYSHEX signaled it would be developing the index at that time. The launch this week is part of a beta phase for the NYFI, with a planned rollout across global lanes by the end of the year. <h3>Prior reticence eroding </h3>NYSHEX said during a launch event this week in New York that the index is specifically designed to be used in long-term, index-linked contracts that are then supported by financial derivative products, <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/near-constant-disruption-giving-new-momentum-to-freight-futures-5979859">such as freight futures or options</a>. The index will be based on freight rates captured on a freight invoice or rate bill of lading over the prior week. Essentially, the idea is that an index built using transacted rates that are close to real time, facilitated by an exchange trusted by global financial markets, will give the container shipping industry more confidence to use index-linked contracts and to experiment with financial derivatives to hedge against extreme price movements. The industry has been hesitant to use such instruments in years past, but a new period of rate volatility since the pandemic, with higher rate ceilings and larger amplitude between spot and contract, might induce a <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/freight-futures-get-second-look-amid-increased-risk-trading-volumes-5970973">more serious consideration of the tools</a>. Reticence in the market has come from both the demand and supply side. Outside of fuel, logistics teams aren’t generally accustomed to using hedging tools unless they are in commodities. But several shippers have indicated to the Journal of Commerce that their finance departments are now interested in exploring ways to mitigate ocean freight rate volatility. Ocean carriers have likewise avoided the indexes that might underpin financial derivatives because they saw those tools as commoditizing their services. But several ocean carriers are NYSHEX customers and board members, so NYSHEX’s development of an index to support both index-linked contracts and derivatives is a signal they are more ready than ever to participate in those developments. NYSHEX said that shippers, non-vessel-operating common carriers (NVOs) and carriers are all part of the governance of the index. The US Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) has regulatory oversight of NYSHEX, as its core product provides the digital infrastructure for binding ocean freight contracts between shippers and NVOs and carriers. Contact Eric Johnson at <a href="mailto:eric.johnson@spglobal.com">eric.johnson@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

The New York Shipping Exchange (NYSHEX) has unveiled two new indexes covering inbound US container trades that are designed to underpin index-based freight contracts between shippers and their shipping line and forwarder partners. The free-to-use indexes will initially provide rate levels on the eastbound trans-Pacific and westbound trans-Atlantic lanes, with data provided by a panel of carriers and forwarders that give NYSHEX access to the price a shipper actually paid to be loaded on a vessel the week prior. That methodology, NYSHEX said this week, will be a differentiator for the index — called the NYFI — over the range of existing container freight rate indexes already in use in the market. Those indexes include the Shanghai Container Freight Index, the Drewry World Container Index, the Xeneta Shipping Index, the Freightos Baltic Index and Platts Container Index. The NYFI was developed in conjunction with the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), which owns the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), with ICE part of an investment into NYSHEX last November. NYSHEX signaled it would be developing the index at that time. The launch this week is part of a beta phase for the NYFI, with a planned rollout across global lanes by the end of the year. Prior reticence eroding NYSHEX said during a launch event this week in New York that the index is specifically designed to be used in long-term, index-linked contracts that are then supported by financial derivative products, such as freight futures or options . The index will be based on freight rates captured on a freight invoice or rate bill of lading over the prior week. Essentially, the idea is that an index built using transacted rates that are close to real time, facilitated by an exchange trusted by global financial markets, will give the container shipping industry more confidence to use index-linked contracts and to experiment with financial derivatives to hedge against extreme price movements. The industry has been hesitant to use such instruments in years past, but a new period of rate volatility since the pandemic, with higher rate ceilings and larger amplitude between spot and contract, might induce a more serious consideration of the tools . Reticence in the market has come from both the demand and supply side. Outside of fuel, logistics teams aren’t generally accustomed to using hedging tools unless they are in commodities. But several shippers have indicated to the Journal of Commerce that their finance departments are now interested in exploring ways to mitigate ocean freight rate volatility. Ocean carriers have likewise avoided the indexes that might underpin financial derivatives because they saw those tools as commoditizing their services. But several ocean carriers are NYSHEX customers and board members, so NYSHEX’s development of an index to support both index-linked contracts and derivatives is a signal they are more ready than ever to participate in those developments. NYSHEX said that shippers, non-vessel-operating common carriers (NVOs) and carriers are all part of the governance of the index. The US Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) has regulatory oversight of NYSHEX, as its core product provides the digital infrastructure for binding ocean freight contracts between shippers and NVOs and carriers. Contact Eric Johnson at eric.johnson@spglobal.com .

Container lines

Forwarding

NYSHEX enters container index fray targeting floating rate contract adoption

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Less-than-truckload companies are reporting low volumes and customers stressed by trade conflicts, but contract rates are climbing.</div>

Less-than-truckload companies are reporting low volumes and customers stressed by trade conflicts, but contract rates are climbing.

<div class="phx-topic">US less-than-truckload (LTL) providers have defied economic gravity through much of the three-year freight downcycle, and they appear to be doing so again, gaining rate increases from shippers in the first quarter despite a broad drop in demand. But there are signs gravity is tugging harder at LTL carriers. National LTL carrier Saia saw a change in the market’s demand “backdrop” late in the first quarter and in April. “This year, shipments in total for the company were only modestly improved from March to April, which we attribute primarily to the uncertain macroenvironment,” Saia CEO Frederick J. Holzgrefe said during a first-quarter earnings call last week. Shippers, Holzgrefe said, are taking a <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/jb-hunt-customers-waiting-for-dust-to-settle-on-tariffs-5986129">“wait-and-see” approach</a>, shipping less than normal. “We estimate the revenue impact of the sub-seasonal trends to be approximately $25 million to $40 million,” said Holzgrefe. Demand began to stall in March, the CEO said, and didn’t pick up in April. “We’re not going to predict May or June or frankly, the rest of the year,” he said. The uncertainty Saia reported is due to <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/tariff-related-disruption-spreading-as-us-shippers-pause-plans-5989017">US tariffs rising</a> as part of the Trump administration’s trade dispute with China and disputes with Canada, Mexico and other trading partners. The frontloading of imports earlier this year ahead of tariffs is giving way to canceled purchase orders, <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/uneasy-west-coast-ports-watch-as-first-signs-of-trade-dispute-with-china-emerge-5995887">blanked sailings</a> and lower factory output in the middle of the second quarter. “We’re getting the first signs of some real deceleration taking place,” Keith Prather, managing partner at Armada Corporate Intelligence, said during an SMC3 webinar Tuesday on the outlook for the US economy and LTL sector. "We’re going through this period of 60 to 90 days where we’ve got such uncertainty that everything is stalling.” Even where the freight economy is not stalling, “customers are producing less,” ABF Freight System President Matthew R. Godfrey said during an earnings call last week. Shipments in the first quarter were down 0.4% from a year ago at ABF, a subsidiary of ArcBest. <h3>LTL rates still climbing </h3>Despite an overall decline in freight demand and volume, however, contractual LTL renewal rates are rising year over year, typically in the mid-single digits, climbing about 4% to 6% on average on an annualized basis in the first quarter. LTL capacity is still lower than it was in 2023, before the <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/yellows-collapse-already-pushing-ltl-rates-higher-as-capacity-tightens-5216052">collapse of Yellow</a>, then the third-largest LTL provider. And although LTL carriers are still bringing more capacity to market, including former Yellow terminals, they’re slowing expenditures to match the market. Although LTL volumes have dropped by double digits since 2022, according to carriers and analysts, rates paid by shippers are now even higher than their peak in June of that year, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Producer Price Index (PPI) for LTL trucking. <div class="wrapper-narrow"><dynamic-object type="jocchartid" resource-id="397d0614-9019-449a-8ca0-64a882efbfbf"></dynamic-object></div>The long-distance LTL PPI, which includes transactional and contract LTL rates and surcharges paid by shippers, was up 6% on average in the first quarter. That validates carrier claims of mid-single-digit percentage gains in pricing. “We’re a very disciplined industry, and we’re not seeing any of our peers lose any discipline” when it comes to pricing, Mario Harik, CEO of XPO, the third-largest LTL carrier, told the Journal of Commerce Wednesday. Shippers can still find LTL savings if they have the right freight in the right lane for the right carrier, according to Mike Regan, chief relationship officer at TranzAct Technologies, a transportation technology and consulting firm. “Pricing has been bizarre,” Regan said. In negotiations with carriers, “we’re giving customers savings, but we were anticipating increases,” he said. The savings come from aligning freight and lanes with the network and needs of the LTL carrier. “We’ve seen one shipper enter into negotiations expecting a 3% to 5% increase and instead it’s going to be a 14% reduction,” Regan said. That’s a sign that “we’re not in a balanced market anymore,” he said. Carriers, both LTL and truckload, have for years called for greater alignment between shipper freight and their networks, but low freight volumes may heighten the need to more carefully match shipments and lanes, creating new opportunities for shippers. <h3>Shelter from the storm </h3>While LTL carriers aren’t immune to changes in the US and global economies, they’re a bit more sheltered than their truckload counterparts or drayage providers. That’s thanks to increases in US inventory, according to XPO’s Harik. “At forwarders or <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/us-drayage-providers-bracing-for-container-plunge-say-rebound-could-reset-market-5994621">drayage companies</a>, if inbound ocean containers are down, it will impact their business directly,” he said. “But at LTL companies, the product comes into the US and then it goes into inventory, and that’s a buffer for us. We see more of an indirect impact, and it’s more spread out.” The bigger impact comes when those inventories are drawn down, triggering replenishment demand. Even then, “if you have less inventory there’s a high likelihood you won’t have enough product to complete a truckload shipment,” Harik said. With some shippers sourcing more inputs and freight within the US, “it’s very hard to estimate what the impact will be on LTL volumes” as the trade war drags on, he said. Similar to ocean carriers and drayage providers, Harik warns that there will be an “uptick following the downdraft” in freight, and that may impact LTL volumes as well. Contact William B. Cassidy at <a href="mailto:bill.cassidy@spglobal.com">bill.cassidy@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

US less-than-truckload (LTL) providers have defied economic gravity through much of the three-year freight downcycle, and they appear to be doing so again, gaining rate increases from shippers in the first quarter despite a broad drop in demand. But there are signs gravity is tugging harder at LTL carriers. National LTL carrier Saia saw a change in the market’s demand “backdrop” late in the first quarter and in April. “This year, shipments in total for the company were only modestly improved from March to April, which we attribute primarily to the uncertain macroenvironment,” Saia CEO Frederick J. Holzgrefe said during a first-quarter earnings call last week. Shippers, Holzgrefe said, are taking a “wait-and-see” approach , shipping less than normal. “We estimate the revenue impact of the sub-seasonal trends to be approximately $25 million to $40 million,” said Holzgrefe. Demand began to stall in March, the CEO said, and didn’t pick up in April. “We’re not going to predict May or June or frankly, the rest of the year,” he said. The uncertainty Saia reported is due to US tariffs rising as part of the Trump administration’s trade dispute with China and disputes with Canada, Mexico and other trading partners. The frontloading of imports earlier this year ahead of tariffs is giving way to canceled purchase orders, blanked sailings and lower factory output in the middle of the second quarter. “We’re getting the first signs of some real deceleration taking place,” Keith Prather, managing partner at Armada Corporate Intelligence, said during an SMC3 webinar Tuesday on the outlook for the US economy and LTL sector. "We’re going through this period of 60 to 90 days where we’ve got such uncertainty that everything is stalling.” Even where the freight economy is not stalling, “customers are producing less,” ABF Freight System President Matthew R. Godfrey said during an earnings call last week. Shipments in the first quarter were down 0.4% from a year ago at ABF, a subsidiary of ArcBest. LTL rates still climbing Despite an overall decline in freight demand and volume, however, contractual LTL renewal rates are rising year over year, typically in the mid-single digits, climbing about 4% to 6% on average on an annualized basis in the first quarter. LTL capacity is still lower than it was in 2023, before the collapse of Yellow , then the third-largest LTL provider. And although LTL carriers are still bringing more capacity to market, including former Yellow terminals, they’re slowing expenditures to match the market. Although LTL volumes have dropped by double digits since 2022, according to carriers and analysts, rates paid by shippers are now even higher than their peak in June of that year, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Producer Price Index (PPI) for LTL trucking. The long-distance LTL PPI, which includes transactional and contract LTL rates and surcharges paid by shippers, was up 6% on average in the first quarter. That validates carrier claims of mid-single-digit percentage gains in pricing. “We’re a very disciplined industry, and we’re not seeing any of our peers lose any discipline” when it comes to pricing, Mario Harik, CEO of XPO, the third-largest LTL carrier, told the Journal of Commerce Wednesday. Shippers can still find LTL savings if they have the right freight in the right lane for the right carrier, according to Mike Regan, chief relationship officer at TranzAct Technologies, a transportation technology and consulting firm. “Pricing has been bizarre,” Regan said. In negotiations with carriers, “we’re giving customers savings, but we were anticipating increases,” he said. The savings come from aligning freight and lanes with the network and needs of the LTL carrier. “We’ve seen one shipper enter into negotiations expecting a 3% to 5% increase and instead it’s going to be a 14% reduction,” Regan said. That’s a sign that “we’re not in a balanced market anymore,” he said. Carriers, both LTL and truckload, have for years called for greater alignment between shipper freight and their networks, but low freight volumes may heighten the need to more carefully match shipments and lanes, creating new opportunities for shippers. Shelter from the storm While LTL carriers aren’t immune to changes in the US and global economies, they’re a bit more sheltered than their truckload counterparts or drayage providers. That’s thanks to increases in US inventory, according to XPO’s Harik. “At forwarders or drayage companies , if inbound ocean containers are down, it will impact their business directly,” he said. “But at LTL companies, the product comes into the US and then it goes into inventory, and that’s a buffer for us. We see more of an indirect impact, and it’s more spread out.” The bigger impact comes when those inventories are drawn down, triggering replenishment demand. Even then, “if you have less inventory there’s a high likelihood you won’t have enough product to complete a truckload shipment,” Harik said. With some shippers sourcing more inputs and freight within the US, “it’s very hard to estimate what the impact will be on LTL volumes” as the trade war drags on, he said. Similar to ocean carriers and drayage providers, Harik warns that there will be an “uptick following the downdraft” in freight, and that may impact LTL volumes as well. Contact William B. Cassidy at bill.cassidy@spglobal.com .

US LTL rates rising despite falling volumes, more cautious shippers

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">While ongoing port congestion in North Europe and longer voyages around the Cape of Good Hope will help to absorb incoming vessels, it will also leave the trade lane open to volatile shifts in capacity that cannot be planned for, a Journal of Commerce webinar was told. </div>

While ongoing port congestion in North Europe and longer voyages around the Cape of Good Hope will help to absorb incoming vessels, it will also leave the trade lane open to volatile shifts in capacity that cannot be planned for, a Journal of Commerce webinar was told.

<div class="phx-topic">The suspension of shipments from China to the US and the swath of blank sailings on the trans-Pacific could result in a significant shift of capacity to other trade lanes, including Asia-Europe and the trans-Atlantic, according to Kuehne + Nagel’s Alexandra Ilascu. While the ongoing port congestion in North Europe and longer voyages around the Cape of Good Hope will help to absorb incoming vessels, it will also leave the trade lane open to volatile shifts in capacity that cannot be planned for, Ilascu told the Journal of Commerce’s Asia-Europe webinar this week. “There is a clear trend from the carrier side of cutting capacity on Asia-US and China-US specifically, and what will happen next is they take these ships and distribute them across various trades,” she said. “The first trade will be Latin America, then Africa and then to Asia-North Europe and Asia-Mediterranean,” added Ilascu, K + N’s global sea logistics trade manager for Asia, the Indian subcontinent, Middle East and Europe. The issue for forwarders and their customers is that sailing schedules and the Asia-Europe shipping networks will be stabilized around the incoming capacity. But when the China-US situation is resolved or tariffs are lowered and demand returns to the trans-Pacific, the vessels shifted to Asia-Europe will be quickly moved back to Asia. “The volatility and the peaks and the lows of the capacity could potentially happen during the peak season,” Ilascu warned. Bookings for China to the US <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/trans-pacific-capacity-cuts-accelerating-amid-sharp-reduction-in-chinese-cargo-5992769">dropped nearly 54% during the week of April 21–28</a> versus the comparable week in March, according to maritime visibility provider Vizion and data and analytics company Dun &amp; Bradstreet. Some of the US big box retailers have resumed shipments, but there are no signs that the 145% tariffs imposed by the US and the 125% reciprocal tariffs from China will be lifted anytime soon. <h3>China floating promotional deals to Europe retailers </h3>The slowdown in cargo shipments from China to the US has seen Chinese manufacturers extending promotional offers or more flexible rate options to European importers, said Toni Rigalos, managing partner at ShiftX, a firm that handles carrier procurement for cargo owners in Europe. So far there has been little interest in the discount options, Rigalos told the webinar. “We have several big retail customers, and they are not jumping on these promotional deals from the manufacturers,” he said. “The demand is not really picking up here in Europe, so they are also conservative in what they are doing.” <div class="wrapper-narrow"><dynamic-object type="jocchartid" resource-id="1aa96cfa-0835-49d5-9d5a-b7a5d7243d23"></dynamic-object></div>Europe’s major economies are struggling for growth and consumer demand remains weak across the continent, yet carriers on Asia-Europe have eased back on blank sailings in May while at the same time deploying record amounts of capacity. Data from eeSea shows that deployed capacity in May will reach 1.13 million TEUs with 73,000 TEUs being blanked, possibly an indication that carriers are expecting a surge in volume from the disrupted trans-Pacific. <h3>Blank sailings — structural or commercial? </h3>There are differing perspectives on the blank sailings. Ilascu believes they are structural and generated by the Red Sea diversions around Africa and port congestion in Europe that has resulted in each loop in the Asia-Europe network being two or three ships short. “Most of the carriers are fighting for market share in Asia-Europe and they are trying to deploy as much capacity as possible,” she said. “The rates are more or less stable for now, so these are not commercial blankings, they are structural.” Rigalos disagreed, noting that demand in May and June was not very strong and the carriers were making commercial decisions to manage their capacity and ensure a smooth roll out of the new alliance networks. “In the past two or three months, the carriers have been putting their utmost efforts into bringing ships into position so they can show good on-time performance,” he said. “Now they are seeing maybe a little too much capacity and are trying to balance that out.” Spot rates on Asia-North Europe and Asia-Mediterranean routes have flattened out in the last two weeks after dropping steeply since late December. Data from Platts, a sister company of the Journal of Commerce within S&amp;P Global, shows Asia-North Europe rates at $1,800 per FEU this week, down 64% since Dec. 30. Asia-Mediterranean rates have followed a similar path and are at $2,733/FEU, a decline of 48%. Contact Greg Knowler at <a href="mailto:greg.knowler@spglobal.com">greg.knowler@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

The suspension of shipments from China to the US and the swath of blank sailings on the trans-Pacific could result in a significant shift of capacity to other trade lanes, including Asia-Europe and the trans-Atlantic, according to Kuehne + Nagel’s Alexandra Ilascu. While the ongoing port congestion in North Europe and longer voyages around the Cape of Good Hope will help to absorb incoming vessels, it will also leave the trade lane open to volatile shifts in capacity that cannot be planned for, Ilascu told the Journal of Commerce’s Asia-Europe webinar this week. “There is a clear trend from the carrier side of cutting capacity on Asia-US and China-US specifically, and what will happen next is they take these ships and distribute them across various trades,” she said. “The first trade will be Latin America, then Africa and then to Asia-North Europe and Asia-Mediterranean,” added Ilascu, K + N’s global sea logistics trade manager for Asia, the Indian subcontinent, Middle East and Europe. The issue for forwarders and their customers is that sailing schedules and the Asia-Europe shipping networks will be stabilized around the incoming capacity. But when the China-US situation is resolved or tariffs are lowered and demand returns to the trans-Pacific, the vessels shifted to Asia-Europe will be quickly moved back to Asia. “The volatility and the peaks and the lows of the capacity could potentially happen during the peak season,” Ilascu warned. Bookings for China to the US dropped nearly 54% during the week of April 21–28 versus the comparable week in March, according to maritime visibility provider Vizion and data and analytics company Dun & Bradstreet. Some of the US big box retailers have resumed shipments, but there are no signs that the 145% tariffs imposed by the US and the 125% reciprocal tariffs from China will be lifted anytime soon. China floating promotional deals to Europe retailers The slowdown in cargo shipments from China to the US has seen Chinese manufacturers extending promotional offers or more flexible rate options to European importers, said Toni Rigalos, managing partner at ShiftX, a firm that handles carrier procurement for cargo owners in Europe. So far there has been little interest in the discount options, Rigalos told the webinar. “We have several big retail customers, and they are not jumping on these promotional deals from the manufacturers,” he said. “The demand is not really picking up here in Europe, so they are also conservative in what they are doing.” Europe’s major economies are struggling for growth and consumer demand remains weak across the continent, yet carriers on Asia-Europe have eased back on blank sailings in May while at the same time deploying record amounts of capacity. Data from eeSea shows that deployed capacity in May will reach 1.13 million TEUs with 73,000 TEUs being blanked, possibly an indication that carriers are expecting a surge in volume from the disrupted trans-Pacific. Blank sailings — structural or commercial? There are differing perspectives on the blank sailings. Ilascu believes they are structural and generated by the Red Sea diversions around Africa and port congestion in Europe that has resulted in each loop in the Asia-Europe network being two or three ships short. “Most of the carriers are fighting for market share in Asia-Europe and they are trying to deploy as much capacity as possible,” she said. “The rates are more or less stable for now, so these are not commercial blankings, they are structural.” Rigalos disagreed, noting that demand in May and June was not very strong and the carriers were making commercial decisions to manage their capacity and ensure a smooth roll out of the new alliance networks. “In the past two or three months, the carriers have been putting their utmost efforts into bringing ships into position so they can show good on-time performance,” he said. “Now they are seeing maybe a little too much capacity and are trying to balance that out.” Spot rates on Asia-North Europe and Asia-Mediterranean routes have flattened out in the last two weeks after dropping steeply since late December. Data from Platts, a sister company of the Journal of Commerce within S&P Global, shows Asia-North Europe rates at $1,800 per FEU this week, down 64% since Dec. 30. Asia-Mediterranean rates have followed a similar path and are at $2,733/FEU, a decline of 48%. Contact Greg Knowler at greg.knowler@spglobal.com .

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Shift in ocean capacity from trans-Pacific spells trouble for Asia-Europe

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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

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