Visible Supply Chain Management acquired logistics and fulfillment company TriCon, Visible said in a news release last week. The acquisition will bring Visible “new expertise in customs brokerage services and international transportation,” it said.
COVID-19 lockdowns sparked a surge in laptop and tablet imports to the U.S. in May, according to Census Bureau data accessed July 10 through the International Trade Commission’s DataWeb tool. The mainstreaming of laptops and tablets was evident in their increasing commoditization as the pandemic progressed.
The American Apparel and Footwear Association is calling on the federal government to temporarily provide reinsurance to insurers that provide trade credit insurance to importers. AAFA CEO Steve Lamar pointed to a report published July 9, and funded by trade credit insurance firms, that lays out the concept. Reinsurance would protect insurers, at least partially, from losses if retailers were not able to pay apparel companies for what the retailers had ordered.
Imports at major U.S. retail container ports are expected to remain significantly below last year’s levels into this fall as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic continues, the National Retail Federation reported July 8. The COVID-19 recession “may be easing,” but retailers are sourcing goods from overseas more conservatively due to the economic uncertainty, it said. “The outlook for imports is slowly improving, but these are still some of the lowest numbers we’ve seen in years.” U.S. ports handled 1.53 million 20-foot-long cargo containers or their equivalents in May, down 4.8% from April and 17.2% fewer than in May 2019, NRF said. June imports were estimated to be down 5.8% from a year earlier. July is forecast to be down 14.1%, with a 13.3% decline expected in August and a 12.3% decline forecast for September.
SVS Sound CEO Gary Yacoubian says his company was able to navigate COVID-19 supply-chain disruptions in China because “we built a lot of product in Q4 last year that was intended to be built in Q1 of this year.” SVS negotiated that with its Chinese factories, partly to mitigate the Section 301 List 4A tariffs, he said.
U.S. importers sourced 4.22 million TVs from all countries in May, a 73.5% increase from April, and up 44.5% from May 2019, according to Census Bureau data accessed July 7 through the International Trade Commission’s DataWeb tool. It was the largest monthly volume for TV imports since October, when 4.71 million sets were shipped here in preparation for the 2019 holiday selling season.
A letter from 41 trade groups -- including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the U.S.-China Business Council, and others in information technology, apparel, agriculture and pharmaceuticals -- asks both Chinese and American lead negotiators to “redouble efforts to implement all aspects of the Agreement, including purchases of U.S. manufactured goods, energy products, services, and agricultural goods, where implementation seems to be lagging.”
A coalition of unions and nonprofits, including Public Citizen, sent a letter June 26 to the director of Mexico's Human Rights Commission, asking her to intervene in the detention of Mexican labor lawyer Susana Prieto Terrazas. “Ms. Prieto’s detention is casting a pall over the proposed July 1, 2020 start of the revised North American Free Trade Agreement,” they said, and noted that the U.S. trade representative, when he was asked about it during congressional testimony, called the arrest a “bad indicator” of Mexican intentions to comply with tougher labor standards.
Section 301 tariff costs motivated a third of global supply chain “leaders” to move sourcing out of China or to make plans to do so in the next three years, Gartner reported June 24. Gartner, a research and advisory company, canvassed 260 fulfillment companies and contract manufacturers in February and March and found COVID-19 was “only one of several disruptions that have put global supply chains under pressure,” it said. The U.S.-China trade war “made supply chain leaders aware of the weaknesses of their globalized supply chains and question the logic of heavily outsourced, concentrated and interdependent networks,” Gartner said. China for decades was the “go-to destination for high-quality, low-cost manufacturing,” but the tariffs abruptly changed that profile, it said. The Section 301 duties raised supply chain costs by up to 10% for more than 40% of respondents, it said. For more than a quarter of them, “the impact has been even higher,” it said. Vietnam, India and Mexico are top alternative countries of origin. The desire to make supply networks more “resilient” is the second main motivator behind tariffs chasing companies out of China, it said.
Amazon set up a new Counterfeit Crimes Unit meant to reduce the number of fake products sold on the platform, the company said in a June 24 news release. “The Counterfeit Crimes Unit enables Amazon to more effectively pursue civil litigation against suspected criminals, work with brands in joint or independent investigations, and aid law enforcement officials worldwide in criminal actions against counterfeiters. Amazon welcomes the partnership of brands and law enforcement in the shared objective of stopping counterfeiters and holding them accountable,” it said. Amazon said the “global team” is “made up of former federal prosecutors, experienced investigators, and data analysts.” The availability of counterfeits on e-commerce platforms is facing scrutiny from the Trump administration (see 2004290052) and lawmakers (see 2003040040).