Consider recommendations to help minimize global shipping challenges.

January 2024 U.S. container import volumes were significantly higher compared to December 2023, and were ~10% higher than January 2022 or 2019 numbers. Overall port transit times in January were much higher than December numbers. Ongoing issues in Panama and the Middle East are creating pressure on global supply chains that could cause disruptions throughout 2024.

Short-term:

Track ocean shipments and carrier performance as there is still a considerable gap between original ETAs and actual ones.

Track the Panama Canal situation as the drought may impact shipping capacity and timeliness and even cause rerouting of supply chains.

Track the Middle East conflict as carriers have begun to divert shipping around Africa, and this will impact shipping capacity and timeliness.

Evaluate the impact of inflation and the Russia/Ukraine and Israel/Hamas conflicts on logistics costs and capacity constraints. Ensure that key trading partners are not on sanctions lists.

Evaluate the potential impact of an ILA strike in October 2024 on South Atlantic and Gulf Coast ports to determine alternate ports or trade lanes.

Near-term:

For companies importing from Asia, reevaluate trade that was moved away from West Coast ports.

For companies that have cargo moving through the Suez Canal, evaluate the impact of extended rerouting.

Long-term:

Evaluate supplier and factory location density to mitigate reliance on over-taxed trade lanes and regions of the globe that have the potential for conflict. Density creates economy of scale but also risk, and the pandemic and subsequent logistics capacity crisis highlights the downside. Conflicts do not happen “overnight” so now is the time to address this potentially business disrupting issue.