Australia feels the pressure as China dominates EV batteries; may look to Indonesia to gain an edge: RAND
Derek Grossman of RAND says Indo-Pacific nations are increasingly forming security and economic partnerships independent of Washington, driven by concerns over China's rise and a shifting global order.
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- Yahoo
Hapag-Lloyd Bookings Double on China-US Route in Weeks After Tariff Truce
After the temporary tariff relief on Chinese imports into the U.S. resulted in a 50-percent one-week surge in bookings for Hapag-Lloyd on the trade route between countries, container flow accelerated even further in the weeks after. Bookings out of China more than doubled in the three weeks after the 90-day trade truce was put into effect, according to CEO Rolf Habben Jansen. More from Sourcing Journal Guess Limits Tariff Impact to Less Than $10M, Adjusts Sourcing and Buying Strategies Panama Canal Sees Post-Drought Spike in Container Shipping Transits US Trade Deficit Contracted in April Amid Tariff-Driven Import Paralysis 'We now need to see over the upcoming couple of weeks what is going to happen, and how much of that cargo rush is going to remain,' said Habben Jansen in a recent online panel discussion hosted by the ocean carrier. Despite various projections calling for a contraction in global container volumes for the year, Hapag-Lloyd revised its outlook upward from its previous flat growth forecast on the back of the recent uptick, projecting global container demand to increase 4 percent. 'I would still expect us to see decent growth in the second quarter,' said Habben Jansen. While China-to-U.S. volumes account for roughly 5 percent of Hapag-Lloyd's total business, the U.S. overall represents 27 percent of its volumes, Habben Jansen said. Approximately 22 percent of global container flows at the company go through American ports. With the U.S. remaining a sizable chunk of the liner's business, the concerns of volatility stemming from the stop-and-start nature of President Donald Trump's tariff decisions makes it challenging to plan for. Case in point, in the company's earnings call in mid-May, the CEO said Hapag-Lloyd saw bookings decrease 20 percent on average in the period after the Liberation Day tariffs were applied and ahead of the tariff rollback. But the China-to-U.S. demand picked up so quickly that Hapag-Lloyd and Gemini Cooperation partner Maersk introduced a new direct trans-Pacific service with a rotation of Xiamen, China; Busan, South Korea; and Long Beach, Calif.. The first sailing will take place out of Xiamen on June 24. The 'WC6' service will connect Busan and Long Beach with a transit time of 14 days, and a competitive direct Xiamen service into Long Beach in 18 days. Hapag-Lloyd's move reflects the industry at large, which has sought to add more capacity on the trans-Pacific trade lane to capitalize on shippers' rush to get cargo space ahead of tariff deadlines in July and August. As the Gemini alliance partners prep to start their new service offering, the carriers still lead the pack when it comes to schedule reliability, keeping their 90 percent schedule reliability goal intact across March and April. The alliance expects to be fully 'phased in' by July, meaning that all shared vessels will sail on Gemini schedules. 'Only then will it be possible to truly evaluate their performance,' said Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence, in the monthly update. Gemini Cooperation officially came in with 90.7 percent reliability, with MSC following suit far behind at 69.8 percent. The Premier Alliance of Ocean Network Express (ONE), HMM and Yang Ming recorded 53 percent reliability in the two-month stretch. Habben Jansen said he was encouraged by the alliance's ability to ensure Hapag-Lloyd's first-quarter volumes surpassed the wider market with 9 percent growth, ahead of the 4.2 percent global growth experienced by the wider container shipping sector. 'That was the intention when we started [the partnership]. We knew that we needed to attract more volumes to fill those ships, also because we lose fewer sailings as we don't do blank sailings, as we used to do,' Habben Jansen said. 'And we sail on time, which basically means that we can use the ships more often. It's very nice to see that also reflected in the numbers, and hopefully we'll see more of that as we move into Q2.' Although competitor CMA CGM has introduced another service line back on the Suez Canal route, Hapag-Lloyd does not have intentions of following suit—the attitude still taken by most major container shipping firms. According to Habben Jansen, the story remains the same. There must be a clear indication that vessels and crew will be safe from potential Houthi attacks. 'If we go back then we will have to do that step by step, as we would like to avoid chaos in the Mediterranean and in Europe in particular, and to a lesser extent, on the East Coast of the U.S.,' said Habben Jansen. 'Right now, we do not see any signs that it is going to be and remain safe in the near future.' Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Tariff Fallout Hits LA Port: Cargo Decline Leaves Half of Dockworkers Idle
Dockworkers at the Port of Los Angeles are seeing a shortage of work opportunities due to the decline in cargo entering the California gateway as Chinese exports to the U.S. continue to plummet. Nearly half of the longshoremen who support operations at the port went without work over the past two weeks, Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, told The Los Angeles Times in a Saturday report. More from Sourcing Journal Hapag-Lloyd Bookings Double on China-US Route in Weeks After Tariff Truce Guess Limits Tariff Impact to Less Than $10M, Adjusts Sourcing and Buying Strategies US Trade Deficit Contracted in April Amid Tariff-Driven Import Paralysis Over the last 25 work shifts, which span roughly two weeks, only 733 jobs per day were available for 1,575 longshoremen looking for work. The cargo decline has stemmed from President Donald Trump's tariffs on U.S. trading partners initially imposed in April, led by duties on Chinese goods that at one point reached 145 percent. In the wake of those tariffs, American companies had been cancelling import bookings, while ocean carriers on the trans-Pacific trade lane from Asia to the U.S. West Coast began blanking sailings. In May, 17 cargo ships canceled their planned trips to Los Angeles amid the plummeting demand. Although China is just one of the dozens of countries slapped with tariffs on its exports, the magnitude of products flowing from the country to the U.S. gives it a more outsized role on the trade lane and at the Port of Los Angeles itself. About 40 percent of imports that pass through the terminals at the port originate from China, Seroka said in April. In May, China's exports to the U.S. had their sharpest drop in five years—since the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic—to $28.8 billion, according to customs data. The 34.5 percent decline was the second-biggest pullback on record after the 54 percent collapse in February 2020 as the pandemic upended global trade. The May export drop has been reflected in the decline in cargo at the Port of Los Angeles. While the California gateway has not yet released official statistics for May, the port processed 25 percent less cargo than forecast for the month, according to Seroka. With less cargo comes fewer work opportunities. The 733 'job orders' are a significant decline from the usual range between 1,700 and 2,000 job orders posted during a typical day shift. For night shifts, 1,100 to 1,400 opportunities are typically posted. At the Port of L.A., terminal operators post available work opportunities, known as job orders, on a digital board three times a day. Dockworkers can review the job orders at each shift and bid on the jobs they want to take. If there are more longshoremen than job orders, a portion of them will go without pay. 'They haven't been laid off, but they're not working nearly as much as they did previously,' Seroka told The Times. 'Since the tariffs went into place, and in May specifically, we've really seen the work go off on the downside.' Concerns over the lighter cargo loads have been apparent in industries across the supply chain impacted by port throughput, including trucking and rail, which are tasked with transporting the cargo to warehouses. Retail businesses that would otherwise be taking in these deliveries also remain concerned about the impacts, particularly SMBs that may not have had the luxury of front-loading goods into the U.S. However, the 90-day rollback of the China tariffs in early May has since resulted in a rapid rush to bring goods into the U.S. ahead of a new Aug. 14 negotiation deadline, which could ultimately result in a flood of containers into the Port of Los Angeles and its sister port, the Port of Long Beach. Hapag-Lloyd said it saw bookings out of China more than doubled in the three weeks after the trade truce went into effect, illustrating just how dramatic the swing has been. Such excess ordering, alongside an increase in trans-Pacific ocean freight capacity in line with demand, sets U.S. ports up for another likely escalation in freight handling. This would benefit the dockworkers and result in an increase in job orders across ports once the first wave of post-tariff truce container vessels start to reach the U.S. later this month. Although analysts have predicted that the San Pedro Bay ports could see record traffic across June and July due to the increased capacity from Asia to North America, Seroka has continually held a more reserved viewpoint about possible impacts on Los Angeles. 'The June numbers that we're projecting right now are nowhere near where they traditionally should be,' Seroka said.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Hapag-Lloyd Bookings Double on China-US Route in Weeks After Tariff Truce
After the temporary tariff relief on Chinese imports into the U.S. resulted in a 50-percent one-week surge in bookings for Hapag-Lloyd on the trade route between countries, container flow accelerated even further in the weeks after. Bookings out of China more than doubled in the three weeks after the 90-day trade truce was put into effect, according to CEO Rolf Habben Jansen. More from Sourcing Journal Guess Limits Tariff Impact to Less Than $10M, Adjusts Sourcing and Buying Strategies Panama Canal Sees Post-Drought Spike in Container Shipping Transits US Trade Deficit Contracted in April Amid Tariff-Driven Import Paralysis 'We now need to see over the upcoming couple of weeks what is going to happen, and how much of that cargo rush is going to remain,' said Habben Jansen in a recent online panel discussion hosted by the ocean carrier. Despite various projections calling for a contraction in global container volumes for the year, Hapag-Lloyd revised its outlook upward from its previous flat growth forecast on the back of the recent uptick, projecting global container demand to increase 4 percent. 'I would still expect us to see decent growth in the second quarter,' said Habben Jansen. While China-to-U.S. volumes account for roughly 5 percent of Hapag-Lloyd's total business, the U.S. overall represents 27 percent of its volumes, Habben Jansen said. Approximately 22 percent of global container flows at the company go through American ports. With the U.S. remaining a sizable chunk of the liner's business, the concerns of volatility stemming from the stop-and-start nature of President Donald Trump's tariff decisions makes it challenging to plan for. Case in point, in the company's earnings call in mid-May, the CEO said Hapag-Lloyd saw bookings decrease 20 percent on average in the period after the Liberation Day tariffs were applied and ahead of the tariff rollback. But the China-to-U.S. demand picked up so quickly that Hapag-Lloyd and Gemini Cooperation partner Maersk introduced a new direct trans-Pacific service with a rotation of Xiamen, China; Busan, South Korea; and Long Beach, Calif.. The first sailing will take place out of Xiamen on June 24. The 'WC6' service will connect Busan and Long Beach with a transit time of 14 days, and a competitive direct Xiamen service into Long Beach in 18 days. Hapag-Lloyd's move reflects the industry at large, which has sought to add more capacity on the trans-Pacific trade lane to capitalize on shippers' rush to get cargo space ahead of tariff deadlines in July and August. As the Gemini alliance partners prep to start their new service offering, the carriers still lead the pack when it comes to schedule reliability, keeping their 90 percent schedule reliability goal intact across March and April. The alliance expects to be fully 'phased in' by July, meaning that all shared vessels will sail on Gemini schedules. 'Only then will it be possible to truly evaluate their performance,' said Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence, in the monthly update. Gemini Cooperation officially came in with 90.7 percent reliability, with MSC following suit far behind at 69.8 percent. The Premier Alliance of Ocean Network Express (ONE), HMM and Yang Ming recorded 53 percent reliability in the two-month stretch. Habben Jansen said he was encouraged by the alliance's ability to ensure Hapag-Lloyd's first-quarter volumes surpassed the wider market with 9 percent growth, ahead of the 4.2 percent global growth experienced by the wider container shipping sector. 'That was the intention when we started [the partnership]. We knew that we needed to attract more volumes to fill those ships, also because we lose fewer sailings as we don't do blank sailings, as we used to do,' Habben Jansen said. 'And we sail on time, which basically means that we can use the ships more often. It's very nice to see that also reflected in the numbers, and hopefully we'll see more of that as we move into Q2.' Although competitor CMA CGM has introduced another service line back on the Suez Canal route, Hapag-Lloyd does not have intentions of following suit—the attitude still taken by most major container shipping firms. According to Habben Jansen, the story remains the same. There must be a clear indication that vessels and crew will be safe from potential Houthi attacks. 'If we go back then we will have to do that step by step, as we would like to avoid chaos in the Mediterranean and in Europe in particular, and to a lesser extent, on the East Coast of the U.S.,' said Habben Jansen. 'Right now, we do not see any signs that it is going to be and remain safe in the near future.'
