Despite weakening supply-demand fundamentals, container vessel charter rates are rising and carriers are neither idling nor scrapping ships.

Artificial intelligence will accelerate the new reality that ocean carriers make no secret of the fact that they are profit-making entities, writes Peter Tirschwell.

The former NYK Line executive was a swashbuckling figure who epitomized an era of influential and charismatic US heads of European and Asian container lines — figures who dominated the US landscape with levels of authority that have long since given way to headquarter supremacy.

Sentiment heard with greater frequency from within the industry and from financial analysts holds that overcapacity will overwhelm constraints on capacity in a possible multi-year swoon.

Fiori joined NYK Line (North America) in 1990 as executive vice president with a mandate to grow the newly formed liner agency and position it closer to US-based BCOs.

US tariffs are fuel cost-cutting mandates, heaping pressure on cargo owners to push for lower ocean shipping rates even if at the expense of carrier relations.

The reasons for the increase are largely tariff-related, sources say, as market participants adjust to the possibility of permanently higher tariff levels imposed by the Trump administration.

Trans-Pacific rates are falling sharply, but the ability of carriers to withdraw capacity, the potential for continued diversions away from the Red Sea, and long-term changes to the global trade landscape due to US tariff policy mean liners have levers to pull.

Marine terminal operators may be forced to resell or even abandon cranes if the tariffs take effect, which would further erode US port productivity.

The recent death of FedEx founder Fred Smith presents an opportunity to compare his contributions to global supply chains with another visionary, Malcom McLean, the father of containerization.

Liners have enjoyed the higher rates and profits that come from external market shocks, but it’s fair to wonder how sustainable that is, writes Peter Tirschwell.

Hapag-Lloyd is betting it can extract economic value for itself through smart containers in the form of improved fleet utilization, thereby de-risking the uptake — or lack thereof — from customers.

Much of the volume that has been locked up over the past month will come flooding back into the market after Washington and Beijing agreed to significantly slash their respective tariffs for 90 days.

The very idea of the United States getting back into shipbuilding at scale shows an erosion in acceptance of the concept of global trade, specifically comparative advantage.

Risks in the containerized supply chain are only growing, and futures provide a potentially viable risk mitigation tool, writes Peter Tirschwell.

Ongoing supply chain disruption and a significant increase in trading of container freight futures among speculative investors could accelerate the adoption of financial hedging tools among shippers and other physical industry players.

Why the impact is so potentially profound is the way carriers would likely respond to a scenario in which a fuel standard is imposed on them, but no automatically higher cost is imposed on shippers to pay, writes Peter Tirschwell.

As a top tier of mega carriers has emerged through consolidation and organic growth, so has the need of those carriers to align their dominance on the ocean with capacity at ports.

Vessel capacity for shippers was a given in the early days of TPM, but since then, carrier customers have faced an accelerating assault on capacity coming from both outside the industry and within, writes Peter Tirschwell.

By promising 90%-plus schedule reliability using a hub-and-spoke model, the Maersk/Hapag-Lloyd alliance is tacking sharply away from the industry pack in attempting to solve the problem of unreliable schedules that continues to plague the industry well after the end of COVID-19.

Container shipping has become a market where prior patterns of cyclicality must now coexist with non-cyclical forces of external shocks that long-beleaguered carriers have learned to use to their advantage, writes Peter Tirschwell.

A statement posted by the president-elect on social media Thursday made it clear he stood with the International Longshoremen’s Association and their opposition to automation at ports along the East and Gulf coasts.

Carrier executives who dominate the board of the United States Maritime Alliance tell the Journal of Commerce they are done with what they consider to be an overly passive approach demonstrated in recent months by USMX staff in the face of repeated provocations by ILA leadership.

NYSHEX is making a renewed effort to solve the fundamental problem of ocean container supply chains, promoting the use of index-linked contracts to build contract integrity and certainty.

NVOs will enter 2025 hoping that their experience this year with carriers taking a get-tough approach to their business dealings was merely cyclical, a product of an unusual market following the Red Sea diversions and an early peak season.

While the presidential campaign is no longer a factor, the new Trump administration will likely be similarly disinterested in a strike of any significant length and, it can be assumed, will get directly involved in talks.

Advisors to beneficial cargo owners say mitigating future supply chain disruptions requires BCOs to proactively engage with ocean carriers and forwarders, seeking to build partnerships even if past experience suggests they end in disappointment.

Carriers are making up for lost time and accept, as the reality of doing business in this market, that actions that benefit them often work to the disadvantage of their customers, writes Peter Tirschwell.

Some have speculated that specific issues were raised that persuaded at least some of the carrier group CEOs to direct their representatives on the USMX to boost their offer of a pay increase.

If ports operated by ILA labor were for decades a dependable alternative to those reliant on the ILA’s perpetually disruptive West Coast counterpart, the ILWU, that assumption no longer holds true, writes Peter Tirschwell.

With the 62% wage increase being an unprecedented offer to the union, the USMX will be hard-pressed to give in on other key demands the ILA is making, sources tell the Journal of Commerce.

Nearly five decades of labor peace on the US East and Gulf Coast are coming to an end, with carriers loathe to see high US operating costs high, labor aware of a historic opportunity, and the Biden admiration reluctant to intervene.

The facility, which is 30% owned by the Maersk terminal unit APM Terminals, is the largest relay port in the Gemini Asia-to-Europe hub-and-spoke network that aims to redefine the concept of container shipping reliability.

Because carriers don’t assess terminal handling charges in the US, any wage increase maritime employers agree to in longshore contract negotiations comes directly out of their pockets.

Carriers tell the Journal of Commerce they would prefer to avoid a strike and the lengthy operational upheaval a stoppage would cause along the East and Gulf coasts, but unlike in the past, they feel no urgency to get a deal done, writes Peter Tirschwell.

For shippers fending off one supply chain shock after another, all the while trying to keep inventory and other supply costs in control, what is happening on the carrier front for them is yet another headache, and one not likely curable any time soon.

Despite sources telling the Journal of Commerce that management has reached out more than 10 times since June seeking new talks, none have been scheduled and there now appears to be little motivation on the part of management or labor to secure a deal to avert a strike.

Maersk’s recent big order of dual-fuel ships — some of which will be powered by LNG — illustrates the quandary the carrier, and by extension container shipping, is currently in when it comes to achieving a zero-carbon future, writes Peter Tirschwell.

Ahead of an International Longshoremen’s Association conference, president Harold Daggett has warned union rank-and-file to be prepared for the “possibility of a coast-wide strike.”

The breakup of the 2M Alliance opens the door to a few possibilities, including the industry reverting to a competitive scramble for market share, driving down profits and forcing yet another round of M&A activity, writes Peter Tirschwell.