as they say here in the south, things are fixin' to get more interesting this summer;
Whenever the trucking market slows, truck drivers look for someone to blame. Normally, a slowdown is just a function of supply and demand. The market has too much dispatchable capacity compared to the total number of loads on any given day.
This summer, the trucking market could have one of its steepest declines in recent years and there is an entity that deserves much of the blame – the Chinese Communist Party and its draconian and inhumane lockdowns.
While the motivations of the Chinese government are unclear, one thing is certain – anyone subjected to a Chinese state lockdown compares it to being imprisoned in their own homes. As seen in several widely shared media posts, the Chinese government has started to erect metal barricades to block people from leaving their homes, preventing passage even for food or medicine.
While Americans watch in horror as innocent Chinese citizens are caught up in an ill-conceived, reckless, or nefarious – take your pick – act by the Chinese Communist Party, there is little Americans can do about it. But like most geopolitical events these days, the lockdowns in Shanghai and other Chinese cities are also a supply chain story that will have a dramatic effect on domestic freight markets.
The recent slowdown in U.S. truckload markets is likely a precursor to a steeper decline in the coming weeks. The lockdowns in China were not a factor in slowing U.S. truckload volumes in February and March, as evidenced by record container imports at nearly all major U.S. ports.
But that shouldn’t give anyone comfort because the slowdown is about to hit U.S. ports – and the trucking companies that service them – in a dramatic way. FreightWaves estimates that container imports from China represent approximately 16% of U.S. truckload volumes and an even larger percentage of U.S. dry van truckloads. After all, nearly half of the containers that come into the United States originate in China.
The lockdowns in Shanghai began on April 2 and the lockdowns in Guangzhou began on April 11. As geopolitical analyst Peter Zeihan described the situation on Twitter: ........read and tweet more...........
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