1273 words 4 minute read – Let’s do this!
Here it is my lovely logistics fanatics – Q1 is coming to a close early next week. The market air is still buzzing with all the potential hardships of the upcoming April 2nd tariffs. Will we see a decline in import volumes or a major economic impact? You will want to keep up on the Market Update and follow our LinkedIn page for the latest and greatest Market Updates and to get on the list for this weekly Market Update Newsletter and future industry related news sent direct to your inbox Email Marketing@portxlogistics.com
President Donald Trump has announced new import taxes of 25% on cars and car parts coming into the U.S. Trump said the latest tariffs would come into effect on April 2nd, with charges on businesses importing vehicles starting the next day. Taxes on parts are set to start in May or later. The U.S. imported about eight million cars last year – accounting for about $240 billion in trade and roughly half of overall sales.
Mexico is the top supplier of cars to the U.S., followed by South Korea, Japan, Canada and Germany. Many U.S. car companies have operations in Mexico and Canada as well, set up under the terms of the longstanding free trade agreement between them. The new tariffs on car parts from Canada and Mexico are exempt while U.S. customs and border patrol set up a system to assess the duties, the White House said. The 2 U.S. bordering countries see goods worth billions cross borders each day.
Ahead of the announcement on Wednesday, shares in General Motors slid roughly 3%, while Stellantis – the owner of Jeep and Chrysler – fell 3.6%. In a post on X, Elon Musk said Tesla would be affected by the measures. “The tariff impact on Tesla is still significant,” he said.
President Donald Trump has nominated Brent Sadler to become the next administrator of the Maritime Administration (MARAD). Sadler is a 26-year U.S. Navy veteran and former submariner. He is a senior research fellow in naval warfare and advanced technology at The Heritage Foundation and author of “U.S. Naval Power in the 21st Century: A New Strategy for Facing the Chinese and Russian Threat.” Sadler would fill the position vacated January 12th by Biden administration-appointed Ann Phillips, retired U.S. Navy rear admiral. MARAD has oversight of the U.S. Marine Highway system grants to increase freight movement on the 27,000 miles of navigable American waterways. The grant program works with marine highway stakeholders such as truckers, shippers and manufacturers, ports and terminals to strengthen the national supply chain transportation.
Import TEUs are up 1.15% this week from last week – with the highest volumes coming into Los Angeles 15%, Long Beach 13.5% and Newark 11.9%. U.S. import volumes have benefited from a pull-forward of demand to avoid tariffs and the National Retail Federation expects import strength to continue through at least the first half of the year. Current ocean booking volumes also suggest that a pull-forward remains underway as bookings remain well above 2022 and 2023 levels, after rebounding from Chinese New Year. The most recent data point is up 9% year over year.
What’s happening at the ports and rails?:
You can find all the information on the below link where we cover port congestion, chassis issues and capacity lead times weekly at all U.S. and Canada Ports and rail heads on our website – click on the link below
CLICK HERE for Port & Rail Updates
LA/LGB: There is an empty container backlog at the LA and LGB ports and empties are creating a costly logistics problem for drayage operators in Southern California, according to Matt Schrap, CEO of the Harbor Trucking Association. Schrap said many of the empties are sitting on chassis at the yards of drayage operators, taking up space and inhibiting the return of the equipment before free storage time runs out at the marine terminals. Chassis on street dwell is averaging 5 days for 20’ and 6.6 days for 40’. Another factor is that terminals must catch up with the backlog of empty containers that occurs when ocean carriers blank sailings during the Lunar New Year lull, said Noel Hacegaba, COO at the Port of Long Beach. “Terminals, in an effort to manage blank sailings, are limiting the return of empties,” he said. “Because of the strong influx of imports in recent months, there are more empties across the system that need to be repositioned back to Asia.” Terminal operators in Los Angeles-Long Beach also say truckers are not using all of the appointment slots that are available to them, especially during the night shifts.
If you are worried about chassis shortages and looking for immediate capacity, our Los Angeles location boasts a large drayage fleet, a large secured yard with plenty of storage space and a transload warehouse with immediate capacity to pull your containers for transloads. Our capacity is tendered to on a first come first serve basis – We ALSO have access to OpenTrack and can track your containers from the moment they get loaded to the overseas vessel all the way to the U.S. port of arrival. Contact the team at letsgetrolling@portxlogistics.com with your new orders today.
Charleston: The Port of Charleston’s new ocean carrier deployments will be increasing from 25 to 29 weekly services. The services will continue to include prime markets such as Asia and Europe, according to an SC Ports news release. Two of the weekly services will be first-in-calls from Asia, one of which being the fastest transit from Vietnam to the South Atlantic. Three services will be first-in-call trips from Europe. In April, MSC’s EMUSA service with SC Ports will offer a direct service with Turkey and Israel, the release said. MSC’s EMUSA service will provide a direct connection to Charleston for this key eastern Mediterranean market. Three first in-calls from Europe, representing all major ocean carriers in the trade, support manufacturers’ supply chains for this Charleston trade lane. Our South Atlantic operation also has a drayage fleet of 12 trucks with drayage service to and from Savannah, Charleston and Jacksonville ports including hazmat as well as container yard space and we have a full service transload warehouse in Savannah and can handle any last-minute urgent transloads and cross docks Contact the team sav@portxlogistics.com for great rates and supreme customer service.
Did you know? Port X Logistics will be attending MRO Americas 2025 in Atlanta April 8th through the 10th? MRO Americas is the face-to-face opportunity that connects Aviation Week Network’s MRO portfolio which includes market leading intelligence & insight, proprietary data, forecast views of future opportunity and risk, forward-looking content on trends, fleet data, transactions, and life cycles, results-driven marketing services and advertising, and digital marketplaces. Members of our Carrier911 team will be present to take meetings and show the many successes and benefits we have to offer your air freight teams. Are you looking to find a more streamlined way to reduce your stress and your need to babysit your urgent airfreight shipments on the domestic trucking side? Let our Carrier911 team be your best solution. We can get your drivers assigned and on site at the airport in most cases within 1 hour. We have access to cargo vans, straight trucks, dry vans and more. Each of our drivers have experience with airport and CFS pickups and have access to retrieving the proper documentation to make these pickups seamless. Don’t forget we provide shareable tracking links and PODs sent at the time of delivery, so you can relax stress free with all of your most critical shipments. Contact the Carrier911 team 24/7/365 info@carrier911.com
SONAR Import Data Images
