Mat: Welcome to the November Robinson Roundup, our monthly review of transportation related issues affecting shippers. My name is Mat Leo and as always, I'm joined by my colleague Ryan Hammond. Ryan, good to see you.

Ryan: Yeah, you too, Mat. Well, there's no shortage of things to be mindful of as we enter the holiday portion of the year. Next week's Thanksgiving. People's minds are starting to go to the end of your push. But man, as we look back, it was a heck of a month in transportation, so we reflect on it.

Well, we had the U.S. election, we had a return to operations order for the Canada port strikes in Montreal, Prince Rupert, Vancouver. We're still playing close attention to the January 15th deadline for finalisation of a contract between the ILA and the USMX on East and Gulf Coast ports. And the update last week from the parties wasn't real promising. 

And of course, if you're delivering in and around the West Coast, things are pretty tight both domestically and internationally and there's still backlogue ongoing at the West Coast terminal. So Mat, did I miss anything? That felt like most of it, right?

Mat: Yeah, I think that's a pretty good summary of what has happened. But I think now the next step is to talk about what is what we can do about it moving forward because there's always a way to minimise risk and ensure that alternatives exist, you know, when everything has surfaced, so let's dive into that.

Ryan: Yeah, well, how about we start on the West Coast? What are we seeing over there? What should we be anticipating and looking for as we go forward?

Mat: I'd say in short, the ports of L.A. and Long Beach are still working through backlogues of import volume. You know, vessel wait times have been really as high as 9 days. And you know, as we know, backlogues have this knock-on effect. So slower to be discharged, slower to be loaded on a chassis, harder to get out gated, which in turn leads to increased port traffic and exposure to potentially additional accessorial charges.

Right now it seems that many of the shippers that had changed from the U.S. East and Gulf Coast ports to the West Coast ports to de-risk against those labour disruptions a couple of months ago. Well, they've left those delivery patterns in place for the foreseeable future primarily because of the potential that there's another strike that'll occur in January on the East and Gulf Coast.

And now there's further talk of inventory pull forward in anticipation of additional tariffs that could come into play, into next year. So all of this is definitely something to be keeping an eye out, especially because that pull forward will be additive if the current congestion persists.

Ryan: Yeah, but being aware of the backups is one important step, but there's got to be other alternatives that exist, right?

Mat: Yeah. You know, beyond awareness, the next step, it really is contingency planning, you know and this includes exploring alternative routes, modes, sourcing locations, et cetera. And you know, this seems like an old news story, but nearshoring is still a valid option on the table that shippers are considering. And likely that's going to warrant deeper consideration in 2025.

So for priority cargo. You know, you may think of moving things via air instead of ocean for that faster transit time. And you know and lastly, as simple as boosting inventory levels, something like this will help to mitigate the risk of those delays from that upstream supply chain.

Ryan: Yeah. And I think it's worth noting too, that domestic trucking is feeling the impact in and around California of the increase in import volumes that the truckload market is pretty tight in California right now, definitely compared to the rest of the country. And there's multiple factors at play that are causing that, but these imports is a big one. 

So if you're a shipper with facilities all over the country, remember that each of your facilities could be having different experiences finding capacity right now. And you should consider adjusting your operations or your approach just as needed based on that to accommodate for that reality. 

Well, shifting our view north well, Canada's just emerging from a brief strike on their East and West Coast. Any news or thoughts there?

Mat: Yeah, you mentioned earlier, you know, the ports Of Montreal, Prince Rupert and Vancouver all recently shut down due to strikes or lockouts until the Canadian government intervened to call an end to the shutdown and effectively open the ports to all activities during the binding arbitration. You know, keep in mind though that just because the strike is over does not mean that the disruption is over.

Yeah, backlogues continue to mount during the shutdown. And, you know, it's added significant constraint that's going to take some time to work through. And as with all supply chain routings, it's best to stay current on the issues and delays and always be looking to diversifying your routeing strategies, you know, like alternative ports, alternative transportation methods. All of these are available when these types of circumstances arise. 

So please let us know if we can help to assist you and sort of gaming out the costs and all the considerations with any of the locations of interest to you.

Ryan: If I can go back quick to the West Coast truckload tightness through the northwest. We have to remember that the Port of Vancouver has experienced a rail strike and a port strike in the last few months. Plenty of shippers have found that they could switch to U.S. ports as a Vancouver alternative throughout those disruptions, which probably having this continuing impact on trucking in those areas.

Mat: And to those watching the video, you know, as your trusted advisor, these are conversations we'd love to have with you. So definitely keep in touch to us. Let us know how we can help to identify opportunities in the geopolitical landscape today. 

And, you know, as it relates to the best practices, I'll list a few here. I know we've talked about it before, but #1 here is lead time booking deliveries well in advance. You know, this applies to both international and domestic freight by the way. But you know, especially when capacity is tight or timing is important, earlier you can book is definitely going to be the better. 

#2 is going to be documentation. Ensure accurate and complete import and export compliance documentation. This may seem like a no brainer, but I get it, in a fast-paced complex environment, things can slip through the cracks. So this is likely some low hanging fruit for many of us to fix. 

Third is going to be diversification. This one can be a little bit more tricky, I'll admit. But if you utilise a port that has a history of disruption and backlogue, well exploring the option to diversify your international routeing, that definitely going to be worthwhile exercise to limit your risk. 

And then finally, market intelligence, staying up to date on cargo schedules and capacity and regional expectation, capacity bottlenecks is critical awareness and understanding of what is and what is expected to happen. And really, it's just half the battle. And you know, by watching this roundup, you've already checked that box and you know, still know that everything remains fluid and is an evolving world of logistics is ever changing. And there's always something new or something different that we have to deal with.

Ryan: Yeah. Speaking of ever changing, the United States is experiencing fresh news almost by the hour as the government plans for this transition of power. While there are some things that change by the day, there are plenty of slow moving developments, particularly as it relates to freight markets. 

There was a lot of buzz in our industry in the days following election, particularly around the topic of increased freight demand. But freight demand growth is not just a switch you can flip. It takes time, takes time for policies to be established, takes time for industries to ramp up production. 

So to help shippers and carriers understand the landscape better, we released in our report a couple weeks ago an overview of what we anticipate and any potential impact to various industries such as automotive, energy and retail. If you haven't had a chance to review that write up, I strongly recommend going to the insights page on our website.

And we also just released a blog article outlining what we're watching for as it relates to tariffs and trade policy. But Mat, there's a few key themes from all of those different reports and things we released that we wanted everybody to know. What's the important areas we wanted to highlight this month?

Mat: The most obvious outcome of the election and where much of the recent buzz has been is around the topics of tariffs and energy. President-elect Trump has indicated that his supply chain related policy agenda is going to centre around the de-risking from China and other foreign manufacturing centres along with the rolling back or eliminating the renewable energy mandates.

You know and this approach would lead to higher tariffs for all imported goods, but potentially significantly higher tariffs from China. And as we said earlier, we do have a new blog that goes into the details around the tariffs.

But as the slide shows, the earliest that we could see the targeted tariffs on specific countries or goods potentially put in place as like late February to early March. Those larger universal tariffs, you know the ones that said to be implemented across the board on all imports, that type of broad tariff action does require legislation and a deeper conversation around exceptions. So that's going to take some time. 

But in the short term, as we stated earlier, with continued port labour uncertainty and potential increase in tariffs in Q1, shippers should anticipate a strategic pull forward of inventory especially out of Asia, which could affect international and certain domestic freight markets, for example, Southern California area.

Ryan: Energy policy has several affects too, particularly for the automotive and energy sectors. Changes at zero emission vehicle standards that could lead the changes across all types of vehicle production from production of personal automobiles to the larger commercial class like 6 through 8 trucks, right. So meeting voluntary sustainability goals, of zero emission vehicles and the supporting infrastructure are unavailable as scale in the marketplace could also make it difficult and companies could experience compliance challenges from conflicting federal and state mandates.

But these policy updates could also impact investments in renewable energy. We have to remember renewable energy, they're large shippers both internationally and domestically and as well as oil exploration with oil and gas companies. So each of these has potential impact on freight demand and the imports that we're going to be watching.

Mat: Yeah. Other elements that could affect freight demand is the potential for tax cuts, which is often seen as a consumer stimulus, but that would come later in part of the in later in the year as part of legislative session. There's also a lot of talks about the potential tariffs from Mexico. There's a lot to unpack there, but really what everyone needs to remember is that we do have a formal North American trade agreement through the USMCA that influences our business relationship with Mexico. 

You know, in 2026, the USMCA will enter into an official review period to determine if all parties want to continue out. Even if the United States or any other country chooses to sunset that agreement. There is an official 10 year transition period, so there's not going to be any immediate impact that's going to be felt there. 

We all need to remember that much of the talk right now is honestly primarily positioning and prepping for those negotiations. So that's why we say it's important to stay connected with experts in trade policy in this upcoming year as this continues to evolve, so that way they can help you to sort out what's just political positioning and what's actually going to be impact to your supply chain.

Ryan: Mat, I think that's a great place for us to wrap up. These are really dynamic days and every day it feels like there's some conflicting information that could affect your company. Well, let C.H. Robinson be your trusted advisor to walk you through this time.

Not only will we share these types of insights and help you to explore all the alternatives we've talked about, we've got experts in trade, government and sustainability policy that are all aligned to our transportation experts that can help you navigate these complexities and highlight the most critical areas. 

Remember, Robinson goes further than anyone else in providing you with global perspectives for how to manage your complex transportation strategy. For more details and additional insights, reference the Robinson Report and our blog on our website.