XPeng's Gu on Business Strategy, Flying Car
Brian Gu, Vice Chairman and President at Xpeng, discusses the automaker's business strategy and latest developments with its flying vehicle. He speaks with Haslinda Amin on the sidelines of the 'JPMorgan Global China Summit'. (Source: Bloomberg)
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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.
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Apple doesn't have a shiny new thing to show off at WWDC. But that's not Tim Cook's biggest problem.
Apple often uses its annual developers conference to launch major new products. That doesn't seem likely this year. Instead, expect people to spend a lot of time focusing on Apple's weak points — exactly what CEO Tim Cook doesn't want. Apple kicks off its Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday — traditionally an event where the company tries to woo developers, users, and Wall Street all at once. Maybe that will happen this time around. But only because expectations are so low: Apple is limping into this year beset with all kinds of problems, from many directions, and it's not clear how it's going to work its way out from them. Let's get this part out of the way at the top: You, a normal person, are unlikely to care about anything Apple announces at WWDC this week. Two years ago, Apple used the event to unveil its Vision Pro headset; last year, it showed off Apple Intelligence, its entry into the AI wars. Forget the fact that both of those products underwhelmed once they launched — they were at least something new for Apple to talk about. But barring a surprise, it doesn't look like there will be any major new unveilings at WWDC this week. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, who is exceptionally dialed into Apple, has a preview of what's on tap and it all seems underwhelming: Even the most ardent Apple fans are unlikely to be excited about new interfaces, icons, and names. And while Apple is scrambling to catch up in AI — turns out a bunch of the stuff it showed off last year has yet to actually materialize — it won't have much progress to announce this week. Gurman predicts that Apple's AI announcements "will be surprisingly minor and are unlikely to impress industry watchers, especially considering the rapid pace of innovation" from the likes of Google, Meta, and OpenAI. All of which means people watching and thinking and talking about Apple may likely end up focusing on Apple's problems, instead of its promise. Not a place Tim Cook wants to be — and not where investors want him to be, which is why Apple stock is down more than 18% in 2025. Here's a look at what he's facing right now: Tariff trouble: Exactly how much will Apple have to pay to bring in new phones and other gadgets to the US from China? And what happens if they shift production — or at least final assembly — of those products to India or Vietnam? Who knows? Donald Trump's tariff policies remain fluid at best. Trump continues to insist that he wants Apple to build its products in the US — regardless of whether that's possible — and the spectre of some kind of Trump-imposed tax that makes Apple products much more expensive remains a real possibility. AI angst: Apple has two very big problems when it comes to AI. As my colleague Alistair Barr points out, Apple's competitors have long, long leads in AI research, and it's unclear if Apple will ever be able to keep up. Right now, it can't even provide working versions of stuff it showed off a year ago. There's a possible future where Apple does just fine not having cutting-edge AI because it can simply use its massive distribution advantage — a billion-plus Apple devices in people's pockets. But being wholly dependent on other people for tech that's supposed to be table stakes in a few years isn't a great place to be. Government headaches: Regulators around the world have been lining up to take a crack at Apple — including the US Department of Justice, which filed an antitrust lawsuit against the company a year ago. (A separate federal antitrust against Google could also hurt Apple, by potentially ending a long-standing deal where Google pays Apple more than $20 billion a year to make its search engine the default on iPhones.) Apple's most persistent foe seems to be the European Union, which has come out with a series of rulings and judgments against Apple. Some of these don't seem crucial to Apple's future — see, for instance, its move to change the charging ports on its phone to adapt to an EU mandate a few years ago. But Apple says an EU ruling forcing it to change the way it runs it powerful App Store is "yet another example of the European Commission unfairly targeting Apple in a series of decisions that are bad for the privacy and security of our users, bad for products, and force us to give away our technology for free," and is pushing back as hard as it can. (It's also hoping that Donald Trump's administration will come to its aid.) Developers, developers, developers: Europeans aren't the only ones complaining about the way Apple runs its App Store. It continues to hear from a loud contingent of developers who complain that Apple's rules around its store unfairly hamper their business. In the case of Fortnite-maker Epic Games, that kicked off a legal fight that started in 2020, and took a sharp turn earlier this year when a US judge ruled that Apple had to allow developers to tell users they could buy stuff from them without going through the App Store — a move that could threaten a huge stream of revenue for Apple. But the app store also generates a vibes problem for Apple, with high-profile critics like Apple blogger John Gruber arguing that Apple has gone from courting developers to making it hard for them to make a living. Apple is most definitely sensitive to that criticism, which is why it often puts out press releases pointing out how much money developers make by selling stuff via Apple. (Its newest release puts that number at $1.3 trillion in 2024 alone.) And this week's event, remember, has the word "developer" in the title, so you can expect Apple to continue to insist that it's on the software guys' side. Don't be surprised if you hear from folks who feel otherwise. Read the original article on Business Insider Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
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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.'
