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Proposed US tax on Chinese ship calls could pressure intermodal networks

If a Trump administration proposal to tax Chinese-built and -operated ships calling at US ports is enacted, the nation’s Class I railroads could face the challenge of attempting to move cargo through fewer entry points without disrupting service, railroad executives said Tuesday.

Executives from CSX Transportation and Union Pacific Railroad (UP), speaking at the J.P. Morgan Industrials Conference, said while they could accommodate a shift toward larger ports, it would not come without “significant” disruption.

“Certainly, this potential port fee that could come into play would have a significant disruptive impact,” said CSX CFO Sean Pelkey. “If there’s more consolidation at ports that we serve and there’s more volume that wants to come into those ports, that’s a good thing. We can be a part of the solution for that. But it could also result in more congestion as well, which could have significant disruptive effects.”

Congestion on the rail network is a key concern.

During last year’s peak shipping season, service disruptions on the US West Coast coincided with double-digit percentage growth in cargo volume. In October, 795 of UP’s loaded intermodal railcars sat idle for at least 48 hours, according to the US Surface Transportation Board. That same month, UP’s average intermodal train speed fell to 27.9 miles per hour during the week of Oct. 9–16, its slowest week since 2019.

Mediterranean Shipping Co. CEO Soren Toft said at TPM25 last week that it would no longer be economically viable for carriers to call smaller US ports if the Trump plan was implemented, something echoed by UP CEO Jennifer Hamann.

Details please refer to the JOC news.

Source:

Ashe, A. (2025, March 11). Proposed US tax on Chinese ship calls could pressure intermodal networks. Journal of Commerce. https://www.joc.com/article/proposed-us-tax-on-chinese-ship-calls-could-pressure-intermodal-networks-5960849

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Houthi militants threaten to restart attacks on Red Sea shipping

Houthi militants have threatened to resume attacks on merchant shipping in the Red Sea by midweek unless Israel resumes humanitarian aid and electricity supplies to Gaza that were cut earlier this month.

Speaking during a televised address on March 8, Houthi leader Abdul-Malik Al-Houthi set a four-day deadline for Israel to lift a blockade on aid deliveries into Gaza — which have been halted since March 2 — after which time the Houthis would “resume our naval operations against the Israeli enemy.”

The Houthis had paused attacks on international shipping and on Israel on Jan. 19, except for vessels wholly owned by Israeli individuals and/or sailing under the Israeli flag, in line with the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza that expired on March 1 without being extended or progressing to its proposed second stage.

 

The threat underscores the fragility of the Red Sea security situation and the reluctance of ocean carriers to resume Suez Canal transits until the safety of crew, ships and cargo can be guaranteed. Carriers have been diverting vessels around southern Africa since the Houthi attacks on shipping began 15 months ago.

“It has to be safe, and right now it is not safe,” Soren Toft, CEO of Mediterranean Shipping Co. (MSC), told TPM25.

“It is all linked to a number of agreements in the Middle East that are still being discussed, so for us there will be no immediate return to the Red Sea,” Toft added. “Could it happen next month, two months, six months? I don’t know. Eventually it will happen.”

Details please refer to the JOC news.

Source:

Knowler, G. (2025, March 10). Houthi militants threaten to restart attacks on Red Sea Shipping. Journal of Commerce. https://www.joc.com/article/houthi-militants-threaten-to-restart-attacks-on-red-sea-shipping-5959250

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CMA CGM, Maersk become latest to launch joint express Asia-ECSA service

CMA CGM and Maersk will become the latest carriers to launch a joint Asia-East Coast South America (ECSA) service with a semi-express loop that is specifically targeting the significant trade growth between Brazil and Vietnam.

The move follows a tie-up between HMM and Ocean Network Express (ONE) that will see the two carriers begin an express service linking Busan and South China with Brazil.

Both the CMA CGM/Maersk and HMM/ONE connections will begin in April, just as container freight rates are anticipated to rise, according to one Brazilian-based freight forwarder.

 

CMA CGM said its Asia-South America East Coast 3 (SEAS3) service — known as the ASAS2 for Maersk — will provide a “unique service from Vietnam” while also streamlining shipments between Asia and Brazil with the limited number of port calls improving transit times.

This is the first time CMA CGM and Maersk have teamed up on an Asia-ECSA service. Their separate existing services involve multiple ports calls in Asia and South America, including Argentina and Uruguay.

Maersk said there will be a 37-day transit from Shanghai to Santos, 33 days from Shekou (Shenzhen) to Santos, and 29 days from Vung Tau to Santos, Latin America’s largest port.

CMA CGM is providing seven vessels with a nominal capacity of 6,500 TEUs, while Maersk is deploying four ships on the service.

The full rotation is Shanghai-Shekou-Vung Tau-Singapore-Santos-Singapore-Shanghai.

 

ONE and HMM will start their joint Asia-ECSA service in April from Busan, also with limited port calls to enhance transit times. The rotation is Busan–South China–Singapore–Rio Grande–Santos–Santa Catarina–Singapore–Hong Kong–Busan.

Details please refer to the JOC news.

Source:

Wallis, K. (2025, March 5). CMA CGM, Maersk become latest to launch Joint Express Asia-ECSA SERVICE. Journal of Commerce. https://www.joc.com/article/cma-cgm-maersk-become-latest-to-launch-joint-express-asia-ecsa-service-5956746

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ILA ratifies new six-year deal with higher entry pay, automation protection

Members of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) have approved a new six-year master contract covering US East and Gulf coast ports that not only includes a hefty raise for all dockworkers but an even higher salary bump for new hires. The new contract is retroactive to Oct. 1, 2024, and will be in effect until Sept. 30, 2030. It will be signed in the next two weeks.

While the union secured further protections against automation, maritime employers won room for efficiency gains through remote operation of terminal equipment and the use of operator assistance technology at ports.

The ILA said late Tuesday that a majority of its 45,000 registered members ratified the new contract that was tentatively agreed to in early January between union leadership and the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX).

ILA President Harold Daggett said in a statement the contract, which involved three years of negotiations and a three-day strike last October, is a “gold standard” for labor thanks to its wage and benefit increases and protections against technology that could impact labor.

“The ILA stayed strong and unified throughout and successfully won the greatest contract in ILA history and maybe the strongest collective bargaining agreement ever negotiated by any union,” Daggett said.

The ILA highlighted the 62% wage increase as measured against the contract’s top wage tier, equating to an average $4 per hour raise for all dockworkers during the contract’s term. But the contract also includes other wage concessions that mean the lowest-paid longshore workers will receive even larger percentage wage increases.

The starting wage for first-year longshore workers goes from $20 per hour to $27 under the new six-year agreement. By 2026, the starting wage will increase to $30 per hour. The new contract also includes four wage tiers instead of the six under the previous master contract, allowing longshore workers to climb up the pay scale faster.

A marine terminal source familiar with the new contract says that the higher starting wage means a 35% increase for new longshore workers in the first year alone.

The contract is expected to be formally signed on March 10.

Details please refer to the JOC news.

Source:

Angell, M. (2025, February 26). Ila ratifies new six-year deal with higher entry pay, automation protection. Journal of Commerce. https://www.joc.com/article/ila-ratifies-new-six-year-deal-with-higher-entry-pay-automation-protection-5951338

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Strikes, storms and record volumes adding to North Europe port delays

The significant volumes of exports that left China in December are continuing to arrive at European ports, compounding existing congestion caused by a series of severe winter storms and labor action at key hubs.

Data from Container Trades Statistics (CTS) shows China-to-North Europe volume in December increased 17.6% year over year to a one-month record of 835,000 TEUs.

“CTS registers those volumes at the time of export, so these containers started arriving in Europe in the second half of January and into February given the current average transit time of around 45 days, contributing to increasing congestion,” Emily Stausbøll, senior shipping analyst at rate benchmarking platform Xeneta, told the Journal of Commerce.

Barbara Eleota, senior vice president of ocean freight at DHL Global Forwarding Europe, said the high container volume would increase congestion at some European ports.

”Current delays in North Europe and UK ports, including five to seven days in Le Havre and up to a week in Belgium, are expected to worsen,” she told the Journal of Commerce.

“Customers may experience delays of up to a week, necessitating extended buffer windows in their planning. Ongoing disruptions, such as voided sailings, weather issues and labor challenges further affect scheduling consistency,” she added.

As arrival volume from China rises, strike action at Hutchison Port Delta II in Rotterdam over a new collective bargaining agreement is causing significant disruption, according to Maersk, with a temporary suspension of operations at the terminal adding to the existing congestion at Europe’s busiest port.

“Due to the strike action and slowdown of operations, there will be a reduced number of moves per hour conducted at the terminal for an unknown duration … prolonging the time vessels are operated on and significantly disrupting their normal schedules,” Maersk said in a customer advisory Tuesday.

The carrier said it had contingency plans in place and may offer customers “alternative options” to the Rotterdam terminal.

Extreme weather from the Atlantic moved across the English Channel to mainland Europe in late January with multiple high wind warnings issued in Hamburg, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Le Havre and Dunkirk in addition to Felixstowe and Southampton. Cargo handling was suspended during the storms and terminals have been scrambling to catch up on the backlogs of containers.

Details please refer to JOC news.

Source:

Knowler, G. (2025, February 11). Strikes, storms and record volumes adding to North Europe port delays. Journal of Commerce. https://www.joc.com/article/strikes-storms-and-record-volumes-adding-to-north-europe-port-delays-5942119

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Stakeholders say choked NY-NJ marine terminals creating delays at port

Marine terminals at the Port of New York and New Jersey are seeing bouts of severe congestion due to a variety of factors that include heavy import volumes, holiday scheduling and bad weather. The congestion is currently making it difficult for truckers to return empty containers and puts shippers at risk for late fees on empty returns and import retrievals.

Hapag-Lloyd said in an operational update Monday that “ongoing terminal congestion in the New York/New Jersey area [is] impacting carriers, terminals, depots, truckers and customers industry-wide.” The ocean carrier said it is looking for additional storage sites for containers and waiving late fees on boxes in the hope that “fluidity will be restored in the coming weeks.”

Hapag-Lloyd’s advisory follows a poll released last week by the New Jersey-based Association of Bi-State Motor Carriers that showed close to two-thirds of drayage truckers believe the empty return situation at the port is a “crisis that must be addressed immediately.”

“Marine terminals are packed to the gills with empties,” Bi-State Motor Carriers President Lisa Yakomin told the Journal of Commerce.

The majority of truckers polled by Bi-State said they are unable to get appointments to return empty containers or complete a “double move” to retrieve an import container due to restrictions on returning empties.

Most truckers also reported that shippers are incurring extra chassis charges and late fees for storing empties and the congestion is hampering truckers from retrieving imports.

The congestion hits as the NY-NJ port comes off a strong year of growth. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) reported 11% year-over-year growth in import volumes for 2024, its busiest year since 2021.

The volume of imports at the port appears to have built up strongly last month, crowding out room for empties. The average weekly inventory of import containers at NY-NJ reached 31,933 in January, compared with about 25,000 in both December and November, according to PANYNJ data.

The dwell time on import containers averaged 3.9 days during January, up from an average of 3.5 days during December and November. The standard terminal tariff at NY-NJ provides four days of free time on an import, suggesting shippers are running closer to incurring demurrage due to the delays.

Details please refer to JOC news.

Source:

Angell, M. (2025, February 11). Stakeholders say choked NY-NJ marine terminals creating delays at port. Journal of Commerce. https://www.joc.com/article/stakeholders-say-choked-ny-nj-marine-terminals-creating-delays-at-port-5942356

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ILA officials to meet next week as ratification of USMX deal looms

The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) next week is expected to start a month-long process of selling its members on the new collective bargaining agreement with maritime employers. The process ends two years of fraught labor negotiations and now ensures six years of labor peace at US East and Gulf coast ports.

Three sources familiar with the situation have told the Journal of Commerce the ILA will convene a midweek meeting in Florida of its local wage scale committees across the 14 ports under its jurisdiction.

The meeting will be called to review terms of the six-year agreement on a new master contract after four days of talks in New Jersey.

The wage scale committees will then present terms of the coastwide master contract, along with port-specific contracts, to local union members. A full vote by the roughly 45,000 registered ILA members at East and Gulf coast ports is expected to take place near the end of February, with March the first full pay period under the new agreement.

The United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) board of directors reportedly approved the contract during a vote Wednesday, according to the sources.

Both the ILA and USMX declined to comment on the ratification process.

Source:

Angell, M. (2025, January 31). ILA officials to meet next week as ratification of USMX deal looms. Journal of Commerce. https://www.joc.com/article/ila-officials-to-meet-next-week-as-ratification-of-usmx-deal-looms-5934580

 

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Vancouver braces for congestion, high rail dwells through January

Port of Vancouver stakeholders expect they will have to navigate at least three more weeks of congestion as Canada’s largest port works to clear a backlog of rail containers that built up in December.

A confluence of factors — including vessel bunching at Asian load ports, a pre-Lunar New Year cargo surge, a strike by dockworker foremen in November and shorter trains due to winter operating conditions — combined to cause congestion at the port and reduce Vancouver’s railcar availability last month. As a result, the average rail container dwell time at the port’s four container terminals spiked to 6.9 days in December — the highest since last March – and up from 5.2 days in November and 4.5 days in October, according to data on the port’s website.

“We are seeing an increase in the number of vessels waiting to enter the Port of Vancouver due to arrival delays associated with winter weather in Asia and the seasonal pre-Lunar New Year impact causing a surge in volume,” a spokesperson for the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority told the Journal of Commerce Wednesday. “As such, we anticipate that high on-dock times will continue for the rest of January.”

Terminal operators and the railroads say they are chipping away at the rail container backlog and note conditions will improve further at the end of the month when import volumes are expected to drop significantly due to many factories in Asia closing for a week or two for the Lunar New Year celebrations that start Jan. 29.

Train restrictions during Canadian cold snap

Canadian National Railway (CN) in December was already recovering from a backlog of rail containers from the dockworkers’ strike and vessel bunching when a cold snap in Western Canada resulted in operating restrictions, including running shorter trains, that impacted CN’s network velocity, a CN spokesperson told the Journal of Commerce.

“CN is working closely with the port operators to clear out these volumes as the vessel discharge normalizes over the next three weeks,” a spokesperson for the railroad said. “We are already seeing some improvements and are confident that the dwell metric will fall back to normal levels as we catch up on the backlog over the next few weeks.”

Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) said Thursday its railcars are cycling efficiently through its network and that the supply of cars is good. Demand is forecast to remain strong through January, a CPKC spokesperson said.

DP World Canada, which operates the Centerm terminal in Vancouver, said it is working with the railroads to handle the increased import volumes leading up to the Lunar New Year on Jan. 29.

“We should be back to normal in a few weeks,” said CEO Doug Smith.

Meanwhile, the elevated rail container dwell times at the marine terminals have not had an impact on drayage operations in Vancouver, said David Earle, CEO of the British Columbia Trucking Association. The only change Earle said he’s noted in recent days is that a small number of inbound containers that had been booked to leave the terminals by rail are being redirected to long-haul truckers for movement inland.

Prince Rupert back to normal

The Port of Prince Rupert, which faced challenges similar to Vancouver last month, saw its rail container dwell times spike to an average of nearly 10 days in mid-December, said Brian Friesen, vice president of trade development at the port. The average dwell dropped to 6.1 days for the week of Dec. 20 and has continued to slide in January.

“The dwells are now below two days,” Friesen said. “It’s all fluid now.”

Source:

Mongelluzzo, B. (2025, January 9). Vancouver braces for congestion, High Rail dwells through January. Journal of Commerce. https://www.joc.com/article/vancouver-braces-for-congestion-high-rail-dwells-through-january-5919982

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ILA, USMX reach tentative deal that avoids another port strike

The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) late Wednesday said they have reached a tentative agreement on a new master contract that covers ports from Maine to Texas. While the deal needs approval from ILA locals and USMX members, it avoids another port strike and ensures shippers of labor peace along the US East and Gulf coasts for the next six years.

The ILA and the USMX said in separate statements the agreement includes language that covers the contentious issue of port automation and new technologies. While the draft language of the tentative agreement was not available, one source said that marine terminals will have some leeway in implementing new technologies in return for more longshore jobs.

Talks on a new master contract broke down in November due to the union’s concerns about the impact on jobs from the use of semi-automated rail-mounted gantry cranes (RMGs) at marine terminals.

“This agreement protects current ILA jobs and establishes a framework for implementing technologies that will create more jobs while modernizing East and Gulf coast ports — making them safer and more efficient and creating the capacity they need to keep our supply chains strong,” the statement said.

Details of the agreement were not publicly disclosed, pending final approval by both sides.

The deal was reached a week before a Jan. 15 strike deadline that was set in October at the end of the three-day ILA strike that was settled with an agreement on wages.

The 45,000 dockworkers at East and Gulf coast ports will work under the current contract until the tentative agreement is ratified by the wage-scale committees of local unions. But sources indicate that the locals are likely to support the contract negotiated by ILA President Harold Daggett and Executive Vice President Dennis Daggett.

The breakthrough came after four days of talks in Teaneck, New Jersey, on a new master contract. Those talks included side discussions on the impact of new technology on longshore jobs, ahead of broader talks that restarted on Jan. 7 that covered benefits and specific longshore crafts such as checkers and clerks.

In December, the union enlisted President-elect Donald Trump to advocate on behalf of their stance against automation. On Wednesday, the ILA issued its own statement thanking Trump for his “bold stance [that] helped prevent a second coastwide strike.”

“President Trump clearly demonstrated his unwavering support for our ILA union and longshore workers with his statement ‘heard round the world’ backing our position to protect American longshore jobs against the ravages of automated terminals,” Harold Daggett said in the statement.

Source:

Angell, M. (2025, January 8). Ila, USMX reach tentative deal that avoids another port strike. Journal of Commerce. https://www.joc.com/article/ila-usmx-reach-tentative-deal-that-avoids-another-port-strike-5919519

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ILA, USMX contract talks set for Jan. 7 restart ahead of strike deadline: sources

The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) are set to resume talks for a new master contract on Jan. 7, sources said Tuesday.

The scheduled resumption of negotiations leaves a small window before the current contract extension runs out on Jan. 15 and a likely second strike by the ILA hits ports along the US East and Gulf coasts.

The ILA and USMX declined to comment on the status of talks that affect 45,000 dockworkers.

While the ILA and USMX have come to terms on wages for a new master contract, the formal negotiations have stalled since mid-November. The union and maritime employers remain stuck on what provisions the new master contract will include about port automation.

The ILA has taken a hard line against automation technology at ports under its jurisdiction. It singled out semi-automated rail mounted gantry cranes (RMGs) as a technology that it wants to bar from further implementation at East and Gulf coast ports under the new contract. The USMX countered that technology, including RMGs, boosts port productivity and creates more opportunities for longshore workers.

Progress on the talks have been further complicated by the attention of President-elect Donald Trump, who sided with the ILA’s stance against automation.

Source:

Angell, M. (2024, December 31). Ila, USMX contract talks set for Jan. 7 restart ahead of strike deadline: Sources. Journal of Commerce. https://www.joc.com/article/ila-usmx-contract-talks-set-for-jan-7-restart-ahead-of-strike-deadline-sources-5913854