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Strong Economy Despite a Yo-Yo Stock Market, But Imports Could Decline

We have entered 2019 with some good economic indicators: jobs, wages, gross domestic product and retail sales all saw strong growth during 2

Yo-Yo Economy

Trying to forecast in an environment that resembles a yo-yo in terms of economic data and policy is becoming an extreme challenge. What...

Politics Becomes a Trade Driver – but Only Short-Term

It seems that traditional economic fundamentals do not have the same impact on trade that they used to have. We are now in a politically...

New USMCA Impact on Container Trade

There are some potential lessons to be learned for container trades from the new US Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA.) This is the...

The Reality of a Trade War

The reality of the Trump administration’s concerted attack on trade and its linkage of trade to the U.S. deficit is finally beginning to...

The Elusive State of Stability

The container shipping industry lives somewhere in the tri-state area of Chaos, Flux, and Transition. While everyone would rather live...

Rocky Road Ahead as Optimism Evaporates

What a change eight months can make. At the beginning of the year, carriers and big consulting houses projected a bumper year all round...

The Full Impact of Tariffs on Trade Volumes is Yet to Come

The back-and-forth incremental increases in US import tariffs and retaliations against US exports continued through July and into August....

Trade Policy Changes Not Reducing Trade Yet

The risk of new US trade policy having rapid impacts on US container trade volumes this year seems to have dissipated some in April. The...

The Trade War is Real and it Hurts

There is nothing good about a trade war. It is a vicious circle of retaliation where there are no winners, only losers. President Trump...

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