importers

Patrick E. McLean wrote in his book How to Succeed in Evil, "There is no such thing as coincidence, Topper. It is always, always your enemies conspiring against you." Shippers may feel that's an [...]

The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach suddenly shut down Thursday night. The closure of the country's busiest port complex continued Friday. "Terminals noted they closed due to labor [...]

A group of 238 state, local, and federal trade associations sent a letter to President Biden, imploring him and his administration to mediate the International Longshore & Warehouse Union [...]

The Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) released an images to the media of trucks backed up on Friday from a terminal at the Port of Los Angeles. Labor action by the International Longshore & [...]

After a couple years of out of control, skyrocketing freight rates, ocean freight pricing finally came tumbling down. Freight rates have gone from peaks, including cargo routes getting carriers [...]

Ocean freight rates have fallen, for which U.S. importers can rejoice. Readers of Universal Cargo's blog certainly don't need a recap of how freight rates skyrocketed during the pandemic, thanks [...]

It's become something of a habit when talking about the sister ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to mention they're the busiest port complex in the U.S. in terms of cargo volume brought in [...]

2022 is just days away from being over, so it's time to look forward to 2023. We'll probably have a few posts focused on what the year will have in store for international shipping, but today we [...]

Importers, and shippers in general, had a rough couple of years when it came to international shipping after the pandemic hit. But the landscape, or ocean-scape, looks quite different now. [...]

Imports from Southeast Asia to the U.S. totaled over $231 billion in 2020 alone, and the value of imports from countries like Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam will grow. Common [...]

Imports for the end of the year were already expected to decline, but at the end of last week the expected decline for October basically doubled. November and December's expected decline [...]

Afer two years of port congestion and supply chain disruption and with new powers from the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 2022 (“OSRA 2022”), the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) is considering [...]

Strike, strike, strike! The U.S. supply chain is in a triple strike threat from truckers, dockworkers, and rail workers. Normally, it's three strikes and you're out, but this is no game. Any one [...]

As the expiration of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) quickly approaches, shippers are getting more and more anxious about the potential of contentious negotiations throwing [...]

Shippers who import from China were likely relieved to hear the months-long "Covid Zero" lockdown in Shanghai had been lifted last Wednesday. However, they shouldn't expect the supply chain to [...]

China’s insane Covid Zero policies strike again. The country has shut down an entire province due to a rise of Covid-19 cases. This has millions of people locked in their homes, major [...]

There are many world events affecting current and upcoming ocean freight rates. Sanctions on Russia with its aggression on Ukraine obviously affects cargo movement to and from that region, and [...]

We may have seen a full shift in U.S. import patterns for 2022, particularly with an increase in cargo volumes through East Coast ports. Bill Mongelluzzo reports in the Journal of [...]

The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach seem happy to keep dangling the threat of incredibly high container dwell fees to induce movement of import shipping containers out of the ports' [...]

At the beginning of the month, we blogged about $100-per-day fines the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach were to impose on carriers for lingering containers. The carriers immediately said [...]