U.S. China Trade War

When I first started writing about international shipping more than 15 years ago, a rollercoaster was the best metaphor to describe the industry, with its volatile, up-and-down freight rates for [...]

Do you know what country is the number one trading partner for the U.S.? It’s not China. It’s not Canada…. 2026 marks the third consecutive year that Mexico is the United [...]

2025 is drawing to a close, and that means it’s time to look back at the Top 10 Universal Cargo blog posts of the year! It’s always a fun exercise to count down the top 10 – David [...]

Universal Cargo’s blog was going to publish a guest post today, but then big international shipping news hit late last night/early this morning. President Trump and President Xi JinPing [...]

Air Freight Surge A couple weeks ago, the trade war between the U.S. and China escalated. China announced export controls expansions and President Trump responded with a threat of increasing [...]

Last week, the U.S.–China trade war, which has seemed pretty tranquil of late, escalated. China Expands Export Controls on Rare Earths On Thursday (October 9th), Beijing announced new measures to [...]

There’s some good news for shippers’ bottom lines where many were worried. Next month, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) will start collecting fees on China-built ships [...]

In the wake of surging shipping demand from China to the U.S., Chinese ports are experiencing congestion. That should push transpacific freight rates, which are already climbing fast, to go even [...]

SHIPPER ALERT: The Trump Administration is dropping tariffs on Chinese goods by more than 100% for 90 days of negotiation. In fact, reciprocal tariffs between the U.S. and China are dropping to [...]

The Trump Administration announced the first big trade deal in the wake of its reciprocal tariffs and their 90-day pause for trade negotiations. The deal is with the UK. The framework for the [...]

Warning: there are tempting deals offered to importers right now that might look good for businesses' bottom lines but could result in serious legal trouble. Find out all about it in Universal [...]

China is feeling the effects of the Trump Administration's tariff hikes, which have reached 145% on Chinese goods. While tariff retaliation has been President Xi Jinping's response, the [...]

President Trump's reciprocal tariffs are set to go into effect tomorrow (or tonight at midnight, depending on how you look at it). We've had about a week since "Liberation Day" and the Trump [...]

President Trump announced today (March 6th), for products and services covered by the USMCA, he would pause the 25% tariffs on Mexico that went into effect on Tuesday (March 4th). Find out all [...]

Today's blog will answer questions about President Trump's tariffs in regards to China, Vietnam, and Indonesia. But first, an introduction... It's almost old news that the trade war with China [...]

Drama over the Panama Canal is escalating. Find out about all the drama by reading this full post in Universal Cargo's blog.

25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada were supposed to hit today from an executive order by President Trump. However, President Trump put a pause on those tariffs. Find out all about it [...]

“China’s so-called ‘socialist market economy’ has evolved and turned decidedly predatory in nature" and "With China’s strong embrace of predatory behavior, it is apparent that the US strategy [...]

An interesting thing is happening right now. Despite some industry insiders prematurely calling 2024's international shipping peak season over and dead, there is still strong container shipping [...]

In a speech, yesterday, to union workers in Pennsylvania, President Biden called for U.S. trade representative Katherine Tai to consider tripling tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum if her [...]