[Freight Weekly] Trump Wins Over Harris in 2024 U.S. Election

🏆Trump Wins🏆

In a victory many thought was going to be much closer, Donald Trump is once again headed to the White House as the 47th President of the United States of America. He beat now-lame-duck Vice President Kamala Harris in a commanding lead across much of the Electoral College. Here is why that could be bad or good:

💩The Bad: Tariffs💩

• Donald Trump’s return to the White House will guarantee something: tariffs. During his campaign, the president-elect promised to equalize global trade between the United States and its key trading partners — Mexico, Canada, and the EU — by implementing extremely high tariffs on products like steel and autos.

• The consensus among executives and economists is that tariffs do more harm than good to a country’s economy. For example, academic researchers led by Sina Golara, assistant professor of supply chain and operations management at Georgia State University’s Robinson College of Business, published findings that Trump’s tariffs in 2018 had “an overall negative impact on firm value, leading to a decrease in the value of domestic producers within the protected industries and mixed financial effects on firms in their [direct] supplier and customer industries.”

• Libertarians at the Cato Institute also called out Trump-era tariffs at the beginning of August 2024. They calculated the harm to consumers and household income.

• The president-elect intends to impose a 10% tariff on all imported products, and a 60% tariff on items originating from China. Mexico could have a high 100% tariff.

👍The Good: Reforms for Freight👍

• On the good side of Trump’s return to the White House, domestic stakeholders in the spaces of trucking and rail freight will see a boon. The American Trucking Associations (ATA) president Chris Spear shared his joy for Trump’s win in the ATA-owned news publication Transport Topics. “[Trump’s] second term offers [a historic] opportunity to build upon that record and show why the best approach to governing is one paved by common sense,” said Spear in that press statement.

• Some of that “common sense” that Spear refers to is Trump’s presidency gutting the Environmental Protection Agency and its electric-truck rule and replacing such rules with national emissions standards that are “possible.”

• The oil and gas industry is also thrilled about the return of Trump with lower fuel prices expected. The American Petroleum Institute lauded Trump’s return as a “clear signal” that consumers want “choices,” including lower prices at the pump.

Other things that are bad versus good under Trump…

• Bad for climate action v. good for some dirty supply chains

• Bad for labor rights and unions v. good for executives via tax cuts

• Bad for USMCA trade deal v. good for limiting immigration

MORE: “The Trump agenda: Here’s what to expect from his second term” - Politico

MORE: “Trump's economic plan hinges on tax cuts, tariffs…” - Reuters

CONTEXT: “Supply chain leaders react to Donald Trump’s win” - Supply Chain Dive

Find New Cargo & Logistics Partners with the FFS Load Board

This newsletter is brought to you by the FFS Load Board. TODAY, right now, shippers need quotes on the following loads:

🚢Sea container — 100 tons of copper scrap: Germany to India

🚢Sea/reefer — 40ft reefer of apples: Turkey to UAE

🚚LTL — 900 kgs, four pallets: New Jersey to Florida, USA

🚚FTL — a full load of household goods: Sparks, NV, to Oakland, CA, USA

📈 BY THE NUMBERS

⛽ Diesel: $3.536 / gal (⬇️from $3.573 last week) - EIA

✈️ Air Cargo Index (Sept. ‘24): 186.1 (⬆️from 179.1 in August ‘24) - FRED

🚢 Global Container Index: $3,315.00 on Nov. 7 - Freightos

📰OTHER NEWS IN FREIGHT📰

🔒Longshoremen strike in Canada locks out vessels on the country’s Pacific coast: About 20 percent of all U.S. trade enters through the Ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert, in British Columbia. The longshoremen strike is locking out vessels that are carrying key cargo. Now, ship wait times are stacking up impacting U.S. trade. More…

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