In case you were worried the government isn't upping its involvement enough in international shipping and the supply chain with recent legislation, including the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 2022 [...]
Sometimes bad news isn't as bad as it appears. This isn't one of those times. Last week, I wrote about the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) using the word shippers most fear [...]
Panama's drought, affecting the water level of the Panama Canal, continued in October. According to the Weather Channel, "The driest October since at least 1950 has left the Panama Canal with too [...]
I admit it. I write about ocean freight shipping in Universal Cargo's blog a whole lot more than air freight. Perhaps I have a bias in the ocean freight vs. air freight debate. The last time I [...]
Can you hear that voice that sounds suspiciously like Chicken Little? "Freight rates are falling! Freight rates are falling!" For shippers, those words are like music to their ears. And as often [...]
Importers can thank goodness that their freight rates and international shipping costs are generally on par with pre-COVID levels and behaviors. To say the astronomically high freight rates and [...]
Did you know that most U.S. port terminals are owned and operated by foreign entities? Do you find that a concerning fact about these important access points to the country? If that seems like a [...]
Freight rates, particularly Asia to U.S. West Coast (USWC) freight rates, have increased by more than 100% since June. That's not too surprising, since we're in the peak season, and freight rates [...]
Introduction We’re still only beginning to see how the changes to U.S. shipping law will affect businesses’ imports and exports as well as carriers’ and other industry stakeholders’ operations [...]
Controversy continues to swirl around the Federal Maritime Commission's (FMC's) proposed rules on "unreasonable refusal to deal or negotiate with respect to vessel space accommodations provided [...]
So some have deemed to tell you there is no peak season this year? Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. There is, indeed, a peak [...]
The International Longshore & Warehouse Union Canada (ILWU Canada) strike ended with a tentative deal last week. Chris Helgren reported in Reuters: "Dock workers at ports along Canada's Pacific [...]
If ever there was a must-see movie playing in theaters, Sound of Freedom is it. In a movie that already struck me where I live by being about a parent's worst nightmare of children kidnapped and [...]
Both the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) and the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) said they will not work containerships diverted to U.S. ports because of the ILWU [...]
If there was a war over freight rates, whoever ocean freight carriers' version of Paul Revere is would be riding out, yelling, "The ships are coming! The ships are coming!" Back in February, I [...]
Things were getting tense at West Coast ports when a tentative agreement for a new International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) contract was finally reached last week. The union and [...]
As always, we here at Universal Cargo are keeping an eye on international shipping news, so you don't have to. Two big items in shipping news right now are the upcoming peak season and the fight [...]
Want to know what's happening with international shipping right now? You're in the right place. Today's post hits top international shipping news stories affecting shippers' import and export [...]
One of the things we often do in Universal Cargo's blog is give shippers an outlook for how the international shipping freight rate market is behaving and looks to behave. Over the years, [...]
Last week, four witnesses representing U.S. and international supply chain stakeholders appeared before the House's Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation subcommittee to speak and be questioned [...]