The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is more than a Free Trade Agreement aimed at reducing tariffs among the participants. The TPP is an ambitious, 21 st century “comprehensive and high-standard” Free Trade Agreement that aims to liberalize trade in nearly all goods and services, including beyond those currently established in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and remove Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT’s).
News
MIQ Logistics has received notices from multiple ocean carriers stating that the port congestion surcharge (PCS) scheduled to go into effect today, November 26th, has been postponed until further notice. The postponed surcharge would have affected cargo entering the U.S. via U.S. West Coast ports or Canadian Gateway ports.
Bureau of Transportation Statistics
U.S.-NAFTA freight totaled $102.2 billion in September 2014 as all five major transportation modes – air, vessel, pipeline, rail, and trucks – carried more U.S.-NAFTA freight than in September 2013, according to the TransBorder Freight Data released today by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS).
As of today, several ocean carriers have announced a port congestion surcharge to go into effect this Wednesday, November 26th. The surcharge is based upon in gate – at origin (in gate / cargo receipt). The surcharge will affect cargo moving eastbound into West coast ports; and the majority of ocean carriers are intending to implement the charge at the below levels:
While the ongoing labor negotiations between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) ostensibly going from bad to worse, following the ILWU’s announcement late last week that it was halting negotiations from November 20 through November 30, a Congressional group last week penned a letter to PMA and ILWU leadership expressing concern over the state of the negotiations. The PMA and ILWU contract expired on July 1, and talks between the PMA and ILWU have been ongoing since May 12.
Dan Bentzinger, MIQ Logistics CIO, was recently interviewed by Ingram’s Magazine for the November 2014 issue. The interview appears in an article is titled: Masters of the Digital Universe, which discusses how the IT world is changing.
The truck driver shortage is worsening, threatening the trucking industry’s ability to serve the nation’s supply chains. The shortage will almost certainly cause fleets’ costs to increase and shippers’ rate to continue to rise.
As we have chronicled here in recent days, U.S. agricultural shippers are demanding that a solution to the West Coast dockside labor problem be made a national priority. They argue – and quite rightly from our point of view – that the lack of progress in contract talks between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) threaten the President’s own National Export Initiative.
“The LEI picked up in September, after no change in August, and the strengths among its components have been very widespread over the past six months,” said Ataman Ozyildirim, Economist at The Conference Board. “The outlook for improving employment and further income growth are expected to support the moderate expansion in the U.S economy for the remainder of the year.” – Conference Board