Tariffs

A new ASCM report outlines how AI, automation, geopolitics, workforce evolution, and circularity will reshape supply chains in 2026 and what leaders must do to prepare.

With one year ending and a new one soon beginning, there is often a sense of a change or a fresh start coming. While that may sound good on paper, when it comes to the current state of the freight, or logistics, economy, it is more than likely that that prospects of meaningful shifts, or changes, in the current landscape, may not represent anything more than wishful thinking.

November imports, at 2.63 million TEU (Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units), decreased 3.2% annually, falling for the third consecutive month, and were down sequentially compared to October’s 2.71 million TEU.

Representing the National Electric Manufacturers Association (NEMA) at the USTR hearing, Patrick Lozada, NEMA Senior Director of Global Policy, made the case for the USTR to move forward with what he called a swift review and renewal of the USMCA.

November U.S.-bound container import volume—at 2,183,048 TEU (Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units)—were off 5.4% compared to October and saw a 7.5% annual decline.

The company says the shift will help improve delivery speed and stabilize supply.

Hacebaga currently serves as POLB Chief Operating Officer. He has been at POLB for the last 15 years in various senior management roles, and in his current position he oversees daily operations, including commercial services, engineering, finance and administration, planning and environmental affairs, and strategic advocacy.  

The letter added that USMCA ensures U.S. manufacturers, farmers, and service providers can continue to access the Canadian and Mexican markets, while also noting that it guarantees that virtually all U.S. exports enter these markets tariff-free, while also helping American companies and their employees compete in the country’s top two export markets.

2025 delivered a near repeat of 2024's volatility, with tariffs, uneven demand, political uncertainty, and shifting trade dynamics leaving logistics managers stuck in a constant state of reaction. Across every mode—trucking, intermodal, rail, ocean, parcel, and shipper operations—experts point to the same themes: excess capacity, fragile confidence, tariff-driven distortion, and a growing reliance on technology as the industry waits for clarity that never quite arrives.

Six months into the latest tariff wave, the US faces a widening gap between policy-driven optimism and the real-world challenges of restoring competitive, resilient domestic manufacturing.

The state of the North American intermodal market could be described as somewhat bifurcated, based on a presentation at last week’s RailTrends conference in New York by noted intermodal expert Larry Gross, president of Gross Transportation Consulting.

Logistics Management Group News Editor Jeff Berman recently interviewed Ali Faghri Chief Strategy Officer at Greenwich, Conn.-based national less-than-truckload (LTL) carrier XPO. Faghri provided Berman with a detailed overview of the LTL market, economic conditions, and how XPO is leveraging AI, among other topics, in the interview below.

Companies are responding by diversifying sourcing and looking for new trade routes.

Blank sailings on major China–U.S. trade routes have finally started to calm down after a rough stretch earlier this year, according to new data from project44. After months of spikes tied to tariff changes, carriers appear to be settling into new trade patterns as demand levels out.

For September, the most recent month for which data is available, U.S. imports, for the ports surveyed in the report, came in at 2.1 million Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEU), which marked a 9.3% sequential decline and a 7.4% annual decline.