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We've been watching freight rates rise to new heights, breaking record after record, for a year. Is it possible for freight rates to get worse? Yes. And they have. After a period of months with [...]

Maritime research firm Drewry is predicting the same thing we've been saying here in Universal Cargo's blog for a while: high freight rates aren't going away with the pandemic. Mike Wackett [...]

As ports are congested on both coasts of the U.S., there's a fully capable terminal at the Port of Charleston where carriers are not sending their ships. Rather than call at this terminal, [...]

Freight rates from Asia to the U.S. are still very high. In fact, still historically so according to Greg Miller's American Shipper article published on Tuesday. However, they have come down a [...]

The Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) made a regulation move concerning ocean freight carriers. It's actually a bit of deregulation when it comes to carriers filing service contracts. Maybe it [...]

As the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach hit record volumes of imports for March and freight rates reached a new peak, experts are telling us that the days of overcapacity, and the lower [...]

It was hoped the high freight rates we've been seeing for about a year now in the international shipping industry would finally start easing back down at this point; however, it appears reprieve [...]

She's afloat once again. The Ever Given, which was stuck sideways in the Suez Canal, has been freed. While one of the companies hired to get the ship free said it could take weeks, in actuality, [...]

You thought port congestion at U.S. ports – the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach especially – is bad. You're right. But at least it's possible for ships to get in and out of the ports (it just [...]

The way ocean freight rates have skyrocketed in 2020 and into 2021, it became expected that the big U.S. shippers – the beneficial cargo owners (BCOs) of the world like Walmart, Target, Best Buy, [...]

It’s early to talk about the 2021 peak season for the international shipping industry; however, with severe congestion at U.S. ports expected to last at least into the summer, 2021’s [...]

We're not completely bereft of signs that port congestion, which is so costly to shippers, could start easing soon; however, congestion is at record-setting levels and what's probably the biggest [...]

We're now deep in a series covering the debate over the 100-year-old piece of legislation known as the Jones Act. The controversial Merchant Marine Act of 1920, as it is formally named, has [...]

Does the Jones Act have a negative impact on the economies of noncontiguous U.S. states and territories? We'll look at arguments concerning just that, with an eye specifically on Hawaii, in [...]

Happy Chinese New Year! This year, the Chinese New Year falls on February 12th, and though it is still February 11th here as I'm typing these words, it is already February 12th in Beijing. [...]

This is a guest post by Jason O'Leary. In many ways, freight shipping and logistics serve as the cornerstone of the global economy. Everything from construction materials to food, to computer [...]

We continue today with a series taking a deep dive into the outlook of international shipping in 2021. Part 1 focused on high ocean freight rates, cargo volume trends, and the potential for a [...]

This is a guest post by Paul Zhang. The epidemic made the entirety of 2020 beyond all expectations. Global trade stirred by the "black swan" of the epidemic ushered in a great recession and fell [...]

Transpacific freight rates, and freight rates in general, were astronomical in 2020, rising and rising until, at last, they reached a plateau around the end of September/beginning of October. [...]

International shipping in 2021 continues right where 2020 left off. That sentence sounds obvious, but what it means is an abnormal start to the year when it comes to ocean freight shipping, and [...]