<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">With diskettes of truck tariffs in his computer and containership and train pictures on his wall, Jo</div>

With diskettes of truck tariffs in his computer and containership and train pictures on his wall, Jo

<div>With diskettes of truck tariffs in his computer and containership and train pictures on his wall, John B. Owens helps millions of Americans with their tax returns.And because he has implemented a new transport method, he is shaving company costs in the process.Mr. Owens is traffic manager at corporate headquarters here of H&amp;R Block Inc., the premier service for helping baffled and harried taxpayers figure how much money they will shell out to support the government.From warehouse distribution centers in four cities, Block sends tax forms and other supplies to about 7,500 U.S. offices it maintains during tax season, plus...

With diskettes of truck tariffs in his computer and containership and train pictures on his wall, John B. Owens helps millions of Americans with their tax returns. And because he has implemented a new transport method, he is shaving company costs in the process.Mr. Owens is traffic manager at corporate headquarters here of H&R Block Inc., the premier service for helping baffled and harried taxpayers figure how much money they will shell out to support the government. From warehouse distribution centers in four cities, Block sends tax forms and other supplies to about 7,500 U.S. offices it maintains during tax season, plus hundreds more abroad. Mr. Owens manages a traffic flow of about 20 million pounds, including ground shipments into Canada and some ocean shipments to Europe and the Far East. Now, with mid-April tax deadlines and last-minute supply shipments behind him, he has a chance to look back. For the past year, he said, "I've spent more dollars (on freight); of course, I've moved more tons. But my cost per hundred pounds has gone down about 8 percent." That happened by greater use of "pool distribution," in which separate warehouse orders that would in the past have been less-than-truckload (LTL) shipments to the same region are bundled into large loads at company warehouses. "We take the multitude of LTL orders, load them on a trailer and send them to a distribution company's dock in another city, where they make the deliveries" to local offices, the traffic chief explained. It began as "an experiment in a limited area in 1987," Mr. Owens said. First the nearby Lenexa, Kan., warehouse - which is a large consolidation point for supplies from vendors in five states - sent pooled orders just to Chicago. In 1988, the pool area expanded to all of northern Illinois, plus Indiana and Wisconsin. Last year, Block added Ohio and Texas. The shipping cost with this method, Mr. Owens said, "can be about 50 percent less than direct LTL." That's important to Block, because big trucks carry about 70 percent of the company's domestic freight needs, and LTL takes three-fourths of those truck shipments. Small-package ground service takes 20 percent. Pricier air freight takes under 3 percent. To the extent he can use full truckloads, consolidate LTL loads or expand the 7 percent of Block's freight now carried via TOFC (trailer on flatcar) rail service, Mr. Owens cuts his unit shipping cost. Block estimates it has 10 million customers, people who depend on Block's supply network so they won't pull their hair out at tax time. That adds up to a lot of federal and state tax forms printed with the company logo, plus more than 12 million plastic foam coffee cups to refresh harried staff and edgy customers, half a million rolls of adding machine tape, a quarter-million pencils and 17 million envelopes. Besides Lenexa, Block has distribution centers in Baltimore, Atlanta and Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., near Los Angeles. Block uses more than 250 motor carriers, led by United Parcel Service, regional Churchill Truck Lines Inc., Yellow Freight Inc., Consolidated Freightways Inc. and Roadway Package System. Rail carriers include Norfolk Southern's "Roadrailer" service, plus Burlington Northern, Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe and Consolidated Rail Corp. For air freight, Mr. Owens uses UPS, Burlington Air Express and Federal Express. Counting the ocean shipments, Mr. Owens quipped that he uses "every mode except pipeline." Block ships perhaps 60 percent of its freight from August into December to get 3,000 permanent and 4,500 temporary offices stocked by January. Since that season is virtually all truck and rail hauls, Mr. Owens said his cargo flow was not inconvenienced by last fall's Braniff Inc. airline collapse here. And most large shipments were over with when diesel fuel costs spiked truck rates upward in December. "We were lucky," he admitted. A March-April resupply effort comprises about 20 percent of yearly tonnage, and because it is so near tax deadlines, "that's when we may do the air freight." Now, with tax season all but over, the traffic manager is already looking ahead to the next seasonal project - shipping the manuals for summer and autumn classes nationwide to train people who will staff Block offices in the January-April 1991 tax season.

Transport, Trade and Regulation News

USE OF 'POOL DISTRIBUTION' LOWERS SHIPPING COSTS FOR TAX PREPARER

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">STG’s deal with a group of lenders who filed a lawsuit in New York last year clears the way for it to emerge from bankruptcy as the company has benefited from the rebound in intermodal demand.</div>

STG’s deal with a group of lenders who filed a lawsuit in New York last year clears the way for it to emerge from bankruptcy as the company has benefited from the rebound in intermodal demand.

Feature image

<div class="phx-topic">STG Logistics has cleared the last major obstacle to emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy next month after reaching a settlement with a group of minority lenders that had challenged its restructuring. The settlement removes the last serious challenge to STG’s reorganization and leaves the company positioned to exit bankruptcy with customers, and freight volumes, largely intact. STG, which provides transloading, drayage, and domestic intermodal services, has met all the financial commitments made when it filed for Ch. 11 bankruptcy protection in January. Those included maintaining more than $50 million in cash and staying within budget targets for revenue and expenses over the past three months. The company increased volume year over year in the first quarter in Southern California, based on data from RailState, suggesting customers did not pull back business during the restructuring. The company is the fifth-largest US domestic intermodal provider, with 15,000 containers and about $720 million in annual revenue, according to an analysis of bankruptcy filings. STG also benefited from a broader rebound in intermodal demand as March was the <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/strong-march-volumes-give-intermodal-its-first-real-stress-test-in-years-6205604">third-strongest month on record for intermodal volume</a>, according to the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA). The settlement ends a bitter fight that played out over the last two years. After expanding rapidly during the pandemic-related freight boom, including its 2022 purchase of XPO Logistics’ intermodal division, STG entered the freight downturn with too much debt. The company restructured its debt and shifted valuable assets backing older loans into a new entity beyond the reach of some existing lenders, according to Axos and Siemens, who filed a lawsuit in New York last year. In January, Axos and Siemens scored an important win when a New York court ruled that the claims against STG could move forward. Less than a week later, STG filed for bankruptcy in New Jersey, moving the fight into bankruptcy court. Axos and Siemens continued to object, but the settlement has now resolved that challenge. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Contact Ari Ashe at <a href="mailto:ari.ashe@spglobal.com">ari.ashe@spglobal.com</a>.</div>

STG Logistics has cleared the last major obstacle to emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy next month after reaching a settlement with a group of minority lenders that had challenged its restructuring. The settlement removes the last serious challenge to STG’s reorganization and leaves the company positioned to exit bankruptcy with customers, and freight volumes, largely intact. STG, which provides transloading, drayage, and domestic intermodal services, has met all the financial commitments made when it filed for Ch. 11 bankruptcy protection in January. Those included maintaining more than $50 million in cash and staying within budget targets for revenue and expenses over the past three months. The company increased volume year over year in the first quarter in Southern California, based on data from RailState, suggesting customers did not pull back business during the restructuring. The company is the fifth-largest US domestic intermodal provider, with 15,000 containers and about $720 million in annual revenue, according to an analysis of bankruptcy filings. STG also benefited from a broader rebound in intermodal demand as March was the third-strongest month on record for intermodal volume , according to the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA). The settlement ends a bitter fight that played out over the last two years. After expanding rapidly during the pandemic-related freight boom, including its 2022 purchase of XPO Logistics’ intermodal division, STG entered the freight downturn with too much debt. The company restructured its debt and shifted valuable assets backing older loans into a new entity beyond the reach of some existing lenders, according to Axos and Siemens, who filed a lawsuit in New York last year. In January, Axos and Siemens scored an important win when a New York court ruled that the claims against STG could move forward. Less than a week later, STG filed for bankruptcy in New Jersey, moving the fight into bankruptcy court. Axos and Siemens continued to object, but the settlement has now resolved that challenge. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Contact Ari Ashe at ari.ashe@spglobal.com .

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STG clears final obstacle to exit bankruptcy as lender dispute ends

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">The truckload provider slashed its logistics division’s third-party carrier pool by 30% in the first quarter amid growing attention to truck safety nationwide and a federal crackdown on truck driver licensing. </div>

The truckload provider slashed its logistics division’s third-party carrier pool by 30% in the first quarter amid growing attention to truck safety nationwide and a federal crackdown on truck driver licensing.

<div class="phx-topic">Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings is making deep cuts in its brokerage carrier base, targeting businesses that company officials say may be unsafe. “We have cut down the number of carriers that we work with dramatically,” Adam Miller, CEO of the truckload and less-than-truckload (LTL) provider, told Wall Street analysts during the company’s first-quarter earnings call last week. “Just since the beginning of this year, we’re down 30% and we had made a large cut even earlier last year,” Miller said. The cuts at Knight-Swift come amid growing attention to truck safety nationwide, allegations of widespread illegal trucking and <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/usdot-releases-interim-final-rule-on-non-domiciled-cdl-holders-6169023">a federal crackdown on truck driver licensing</a>. “We felt it was prudent for us to take the steps to eliminate capacity that we didn’t feel comfortable with,” Miller said. “And do I think others will do that? I think some will.” Knight-Swift, which reported $7.5 billion in total revenue last year, had $127.6 million in logistics revenue, largely brokerage-based business, in the first quarter. That revenue was down 9.9% from a year earlier, driven by an 18.9% decline in load counts. <h3>Growing pressure to tighten standards </h3>Brokerages and carriers such as Knight-Swift that operate brokerages as part of a transportation portfolio are under growing pressure to tighten standards used to vet carriers. The US Supreme Court is currently considering a case that could determine what level of <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/02/court-to-consider-whether-freight-brokers-can-be-held-liable-for-negligent-hiring/">legal liability</a> brokerages bear when contracting with asset-based trucking firms. <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-dangerous-trucking-schemes-putting-americans-at-risk-60-minutes-transcript/">Recent media coverage</a> about illegal trucking and unsafe carriers has heightened public attention on how brokers vet the carriers they select to haul freight. “We have taken a great number of steps to really ensure that we have high-quality, safe carriers,” Miller said during the conference call. “We vet how long you've been in business. We're looking at evidence that you have logs that we could see where your tractors are.” A real challenge for brokers and shippers, he said, is identifying and monitoring who is driving a brokered truck. “The broker has no idea, in most cases,” said Miller. “We are taking steps to ensure we have a copy of the license, [that] we know who’s in the truck, especially if they’re going to operate and leverage one of our trailers,” he added. In doing so, Knight-Swift is going well beyond basic legal requirements that a freight broker select trucking firms with active operating authority and motor carrier insurance. That’s a decision more brokers and carriers are going to face, said Miller, as a regulatory crackdown on truck driver licensing eliminates more capacity. “Some logistics companies may not have a choice because the capacity they’re leveraging today won’t exist,” he said. “We’re anticipating that our customers are going to start being more concerned about this as this becomes more of a relevant issue,” Miller said. “We’re already seeing that.” Contact William B. Cassidy at <a href="mailto:bill.cassidy@spglobal.com">bill.cassidy@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings is making deep cuts in its brokerage carrier base, targeting businesses that company officials say may be unsafe. “We have cut down the number of carriers that we work with dramatically,” Adam Miller, CEO of the truckload and less-than-truckload (LTL) provider, told Wall Street analysts during the company’s first-quarter earnings call last week. “Just since the beginning of this year, we’re down 30% and we had made a large cut even earlier last year,” Miller said. The cuts at Knight-Swift come amid growing attention to truck safety nationwide, allegations of widespread illegal trucking and a federal crackdown on truck driver licensing . “We felt it was prudent for us to take the steps to eliminate capacity that we didn’t feel comfortable with,” Miller said. “And do I think others will do that? I think some will.” Knight-Swift, which reported $7.5 billion in total revenue last year, had $127.6 million in logistics revenue, largely brokerage-based business, in the first quarter. That revenue was down 9.9% from a year earlier, driven by an 18.9% decline in load counts. Growing pressure to tighten standards Brokerages and carriers such as Knight-Swift that operate brokerages as part of a transportation portfolio are under growing pressure to tighten standards used to vet carriers. The US Supreme Court is currently considering a case that could determine what level of legal liability brokerages bear when contracting with asset-based trucking firms. Recent media coverage about illegal trucking and unsafe carriers has heightened public attention on how brokers vet the carriers they select to haul freight. “We have taken a great number of steps to really ensure that we have high-quality, safe carriers,” Miller said during the conference call. “We vet how long you've been in business. We're looking at evidence that you have logs that we could see where your tractors are.” A real challenge for brokers and shippers, he said, is identifying and monitoring who is driving a brokered truck. “The broker has no idea, in most cases,” said Miller. “We are taking steps to ensure we have a copy of the license, [that] we know who’s in the truck, especially if they’re going to operate and leverage one of our trailers,” he added. In doing so, Knight-Swift is going well beyond basic legal requirements that a freight broker select trucking firms with active operating authority and motor carrier insurance. That’s a decision more brokers and carriers are going to face, said Miller, as a regulatory crackdown on truck driver licensing eliminates more capacity. “Some logistics companies may not have a choice because the capacity they’re leveraging today won’t exist,” he said. “We’re anticipating that our customers are going to start being more concerned about this as this becomes more of a relevant issue,” Miller said. “We’re already seeing that.” Contact William B. Cassidy at bill.cassidy@spglobal.com .

Truck brokers

Knight-Swift making safety-related cuts to brokerage fleet

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">The near-term view for the industry is heavily dependent on how quickly the war in the Middle East is resolved, experts said at the Journal of Commerce’s Breakbulk and Project Cargo Conference 2026.</div>

The near-term view for the industry is heavily dependent on how quickly the war in the Middle East is resolved, experts said at the Journal of Commerce’s Breakbulk and Project Cargo Conference 2026.

<div class="phx-topic">The mix of industrial sectors that drive project cargo and breakbulk demand could well shift toward electrification and renewable energy in the coming years, but the industry is still driven by the oil and gas sectors despite fresh headwinds caused by the war in the Middle East. That sentiment, laid out in detail at the Journal of Commerce’s Breakbulk and Project Cargo Conference 2026 in New Orleans last week, cuts against the notion that service providers are totally consumed with data center construction. Tim Killen, head of growth at forwarder Fracht, said oil and gas still represents 25% of the planned capital expenditure investment for new projects globally over the next decade, compared with 8% to 10% for data centers, the sixth-highest project category. “We’ve had a lot of conversations over the last two days in terms of power generation and data centers,” Killen said at the conference. “But let’s recognize that both for North America and globally, oil and gas is critical. So we’re still focusing on that.” Among the sectors sandwiched between oil and gas and data centers that are driving new project capex are transformers, which Killen said has seen 300% growth in the last five years; infrastructure, such as bridges and water projects; and renewable energy, which accounts for 15% of capex for new projects. Cyril Varghese, global logistics director at Fluor, said the biggest issue clouding any outlook by project shippers, forwarders or carriers right now is not knowing how long the war in the Middle East will last. “What are the trickle effects going to be?” he said at Breakbulk26. “What is the trade reconfiguration going to look like? How much is protectionism and all countries trying to have a trade surplus or a balanced trade book impact your cargo movements across the globe?” Varghese said he is focused on what a prolonged conflict does to global GDP growth. “When you look at the [International Monetary Fund’s] World Economic Outlook, the recalibrated baseline for global growth is in the range of 3.1% for ’26 and 3.2% for ’27,” he said. “Now that’s in a baseline scenario, assuming that the conflict ends soon. A severe scenario takes the growth global growth rate to 2.5% and 2.2%.” Varghese’s contention is that carriers should be careful to not over-order breakbulk and multipurpose vessels with that uncertainty hanging over the industry, especially because new vessels entering the fleet tend to be able to carry more cargo than ones exiting the fleet. “If the overall [economic] growth slows down, and if there is more protectionism, which is coming, and if the industry just becomes sluggish, I think we would be prudent in terms of not going into an expansion spree,” he said. <h3>‘Flexibility crisis’ </h3>A more near-term issue is whether disruption to the supply of bunker fuel at key ports, especially in Asia, extends transit times and increases costs for projects. “On paper everything looks fine,” Melanie Drehkopf, chief commercial officer at dship Carriers, told the conference when asked about bunker availability. “In practice it’s getting tighter. There are longer lead times and you cannot just order bunker as you did before. The pricing validity window is shrinking, so if you have an offer, you better jump on it. Our flexibility is getting less and less, which means switching cargoes from one ship to another is harder.” Drehkopf said the industry doesn’t have a supply crisis yet, “but we have a flexibility crisis, especially in heavy-lift, where you don’t have regular ports.” Looking further out, she said if the war persists for another month and continues to curtail fuel supply through the Strait of Hormuz, lead times will get longer. “It’s all a big question mark,” Drehkopf said. “I don’t think it’s going to get better. I don’t think it will idle capacity, but maybe you need to wait two, three, or four days to get the bunkers you need. There are already bottlenecks of some commodities due to a mismatch of vessels and specific commodities.” Contact Eric Johnson at <a href="mailto:eric.johnson@spglobal.com">eric.johnson@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

The mix of industrial sectors that drive project cargo and breakbulk demand could well shift toward electrification and renewable energy in the coming years, but the industry is still driven by the oil and gas sectors despite fresh headwinds caused by the war in the Middle East. That sentiment, laid out in detail at the Journal of Commerce’s Breakbulk and Project Cargo Conference 2026 in New Orleans last week, cuts against the notion that service providers are totally consumed with data center construction. Tim Killen, head of growth at forwarder Fracht, said oil and gas still represents 25% of the planned capital expenditure investment for new projects globally over the next decade, compared with 8% to 10% for data centers, the sixth-highest project category. “We’ve had a lot of conversations over the last two days in terms of power generation and data centers,” Killen said at the conference. “But let’s recognize that both for North America and globally, oil and gas is critical. So we’re still focusing on that.” Among the sectors sandwiched between oil and gas and data centers that are driving new project capex are transformers, which Killen said has seen 300% growth in the last five years; infrastructure, such as bridges and water projects; and renewable energy, which accounts for 15% of capex for new projects. Cyril Varghese, global logistics director at Fluor, said the biggest issue clouding any outlook by project shippers, forwarders or carriers right now is not knowing how long the war in the Middle East will last. “What are the trickle effects going to be?” he said at Breakbulk26. “What is the trade reconfiguration going to look like? How much is protectionism and all countries trying to have a trade surplus or a balanced trade book impact your cargo movements across the globe?” Varghese said he is focused on what a prolonged conflict does to global GDP growth. “When you look at the [International Monetary Fund’s] World Economic Outlook, the recalibrated baseline for global growth is in the range of 3.1% for ’26 and 3.2% for ’27,” he said. “Now that’s in a baseline scenario, assuming that the conflict ends soon. A severe scenario takes the growth global growth rate to 2.5% and 2.2%.” Varghese’s contention is that carriers should be careful to not over-order breakbulk and multipurpose vessels with that uncertainty hanging over the industry, especially because new vessels entering the fleet tend to be able to carry more cargo than ones exiting the fleet. “If the overall [economic] growth slows down, and if there is more protectionism, which is coming, and if the industry just becomes sluggish, I think we would be prudent in terms of not going into an expansion spree,” he said. ‘Flexibility crisis’ A more near-term issue is whether disruption to the supply of bunker fuel at key ports, especially in Asia, extends transit times and increases costs for projects. “On paper everything looks fine,” Melanie Drehkopf, chief commercial officer at dship Carriers, told the conference when asked about bunker availability. “In practice it’s getting tighter. There are longer lead times and you cannot just order bunker as you did before. The pricing validity window is shrinking, so if you have an offer, you better jump on it. Our flexibility is getting less and less, which means switching cargoes from one ship to another is harder.” Drehkopf said the industry doesn’t have a supply crisis yet, “but we have a flexibility crisis, especially in heavy-lift, where you don’t have regular ports.” Looking further out, she said if the war persists for another month and continues to curtail fuel supply through the Strait of Hormuz, lead times will get longer. “It’s all a big question mark,” Drehkopf said. “I don’t think it’s going to get better. I don’t think it will idle capacity, but maybe you need to wait two, three, or four days to get the bunkers you need. There are already bottlenecks of some commodities due to a mismatch of vessels and specific commodities.” Contact Eric Johnson at eric.johnson@spglobal.com .

Breakbulk carriers

Energy projects

Project cargo

Breakbulk News

Oil supply worries, economic uncertainty cloud outlook for breakbulk sector

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">A penalty only works when it reaches the decision-maker with enough force to change the decision; the one coming into effect at the port on May 1 does not, writes Paul Tonsager.</div>

A penalty only works when it reaches the decision-maker with enough force to change the decision; the one coming into effect at the port on May 1 does not, writes Paul Tonsager.

<div class="phx-topic">The Port of New York and New Jersey’s revised empty container fee takes effect May 1. The question worth asking is not how much to charge — it is who is being charged, and whether the charge ever reaches the party making the decision. On April 10, <a href="https://www.joc.com/article/ny-nj-updating-port-tariff-to-combat-rising-backlog-of-empty-boxes-6208652">a three-mile line of trucks was sent home from Port Newark Depot</a> because the 12-acre off-dock facility had run out of room for Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd empties. APM Terminals contracted the depot in February 2025 to handle Gemini Cooperation empties and preserve on-terminal space for loaded moves. Drivers burned hours-of-service in a queue that backed onto public roads. <div class="wrapper-narrow float-right-element"><img src="/images/phoenix/6210306_0.1.jpg"></img></div>The Port Authority’s response is a sharper version of the tool it has used since 2022. The revised tariff shortens the evaluation window from 12 months to six, extends scope to nearby depots, and retains the $100-per-container fee. The fee cannot solve the problem it is aimed at because the party paying it has already priced it in. Empty repositioning is a structural cost for ocean carriers, absorbed into rate structures and recovered in freight pricing. Spread across a 10,000-TEU vessel call, $100 per excess empty is a rounding error against voyage revenue. The carrier faces no vessel schedule or berth priority consequence beyond the invoice itself. The fee is a line item, not a lever. This is not the Port Authority’s first attempt. The 2011 Cargo Facility Charge, the only instrument of its kind at any US port, required eight years of carrier pressure and a 2019 restructuring that exempted empties. The Container Imbalance Fee has been revised multiple times since its 2022 introduction. Meanwhile, the operational cost lands downstream. Drayage operators absorb four- and five-hour queue times. Beneficial cargo owners (BCOs) pay detention on containers their truckers could not return because the return location was full. The solution to overflow has been more overflow capacity, which will fill on the same logic. The Port Authority has demonstrated a mechanism that does change behavior. The Clean Trucks Program phased out pre-1994 engine trucks from marine terminal access in January 2011 and restricted pre-2007 engines by January 2017. Trucks that did not meet the threshold were not fined; they were excluded. The drayage fleet turned over because the alternative to compliance was loss of terminal access, not a line item on a monthly invoice. The mechanism worked because it was tied to something the affected party valued and could not substitute away from. The equivalent instrument for ocean carriers would need to operate differently. A carrier cannot be excluded from the port the way a non-compliant truck can. What it can be held to is continuous, verifiable accountability for the asset it owns and directs. A chain of custody for empty containers would capture every handoff — carrier to terminal, terminal to drayage, drayage to BCO, drayage to return location — in a standardized event record held by a neutral registry. Each record would identify the custody party physically holding the box and the directing party issuing the disposition instruction. For empties, the directing party is almost always the ocean carrier. When that party’s instruction is unexecutable because the return location is full or the appointment unavailable, an accountability clock would run against the directing party until a usable instruction is issued. The mechanism places continuous economic consequence on the party making the decision. <h3>Revised tariff is ‘reasonable,’ but in the ‘wrong forum’ </h3>North American rail has operated a functionally equivalent system for over a century through car hire rules codified in the Association of American Railroads’ Circular OT-10 and settled through Railinc’s neutral clearinghouse, producing an asset management discipline that operates against a verifiable event record rather than through periodic fee revision. Most of the technical infrastructure for a maritime version already exists. Major ocean carriers including Hapag-Lloyd, Mediterranean Shipping Co., and Ocean Network Express (ONE) have deployed or are deploying Internet of Things (IoT) container tracking at scale. Terminal operating systems capture gate events. UN/CEFACT and the Digital Container Shipping Association have published the data standards. What is missing is the neutral registry, the rulemaking that would require detention billing to be supported by chain-of-custody data, and the settlement layer. The Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) has the authority to build all three under OSRA-22 and existing federal regulations on detention and demurrage invoices. None requires new legislation. The May 1 tariff revision is a reasonable administrative action by the Port Authority. It is also the wrong forum for the substantive fix. The port can tie terminal access to utilization performance the way it once tied it to emissions compliance. The FMC can build the chain-of-custody framework that puts the accountability clock on the carrier. A penalty only works when it reaches the decision-maker with enough force to change the decision. The current one does not. The accountability architecture that would make the next one unnecessary has not yet been built. Paul Tonsager is founder and principal of IMS Advisory and writes the Signals &amp; Switches newsletter on freight strategy at aet1998.substack.com. Contact him at <a href="mailto:paul.tonsager@multimodalsolutions.io">paul.tonsager@multimodalsolutions.io</a>.</div>

The Port of New York and New Jersey’s revised empty container fee takes effect May 1. The question worth asking is not how much to charge — it is who is being charged, and whether the charge ever reaches the party making the decision. On April 10, a three-mile line of trucks was sent home from Port Newark Depot because the 12-acre off-dock facility had run out of room for Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd empties. APM Terminals contracted the depot in February 2025 to handle Gemini Cooperation empties and preserve on-terminal space for loaded moves. Drivers burned hours-of-service in a queue that backed onto public roads. The Port Authority’s response is a sharper version of the tool it has used since 2022. The revised tariff shortens the evaluation window from 12 months to six, extends scope to nearby depots, and retains the $100-per-container fee. The fee cannot solve the problem it is aimed at because the party paying it has already priced it in. Empty repositioning is a structural cost for ocean carriers, absorbed into rate structures and recovered in freight pricing. Spread across a 10,000-TEU vessel call, $100 per excess empty is a rounding error against voyage revenue. The carrier faces no vessel schedule or berth priority consequence beyond the invoice itself. The fee is a line item, not a lever. This is not the Port Authority’s first attempt. The 2011 Cargo Facility Charge, the only instrument of its kind at any US port, required eight years of carrier pressure and a 2019 restructuring that exempted empties. The Container Imbalance Fee has been revised multiple times since its 2022 introduction. Meanwhile, the operational cost lands downstream. Drayage operators absorb four- and five-hour queue times. Beneficial cargo owners (BCOs) pay detention on containers their truckers could not return because the return location was full. The solution to overflow has been more overflow capacity, which will fill on the same logic. The Port Authority has demonstrated a mechanism that does change behavior. The Clean Trucks Program phased out pre-1994 engine trucks from marine terminal access in January 2011 and restricted pre-2007 engines by January 2017. Trucks that did not meet the threshold were not fined; they were excluded. The drayage fleet turned over because the alternative to compliance was loss of terminal access, not a line item on a monthly invoice. The mechanism worked because it was tied to something the affected party valued and could not substitute away from. The equivalent instrument for ocean carriers would need to operate differently. A carrier cannot be excluded from the port the way a non-compliant truck can. What it can be held to is continuous, verifiable accountability for the asset it owns and directs. A chain of custody for empty containers would capture every handoff — carrier to terminal, terminal to drayage, drayage to BCO, drayage to return location — in a standardized event record held by a neutral registry. Each record would identify the custody party physically holding the box and the directing party issuing the disposition instruction. For empties, the directing party is almost always the ocean carrier. When that party’s instruction is unexecutable because the return location is full or the appointment unavailable, an accountability clock would run against the directing party until a usable instruction is issued. The mechanism places continuous economic consequence on the party making the decision. Revised tariff is ‘reasonable,’ but in the ‘wrong forum’ North American rail has operated a functionally equivalent system for over a century through car hire rules codified in the Association of American Railroads’ Circular OT-10 and settled through Railinc’s neutral clearinghouse, producing an asset management discipline that operates against a verifiable event record rather than through periodic fee revision. Most of the technical infrastructure for a maritime version already exists. Major ocean carriers including Hapag-Lloyd, Mediterranean Shipping Co., and Ocean Network Express (ONE) have deployed or are deploying Internet of Things (IoT) container tracking at scale. Terminal operating systems capture gate events. UN/CEFACT and the Digital Container Shipping Association have published the data standards. What is missing is the neutral registry, the rulemaking that would require detention billing to be supported by chain-of-custody data, and the settlement layer. The Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) has the authority to build all three under OSRA-22 and existing federal regulations on detention and demurrage invoices. None requires new legislation. The May 1 tariff revision is a reasonable administrative action by the Port Authority. It is also the wrong forum for the substantive fix. The port can tie terminal access to utilization performance the way it once tied it to emissions compliance. The FMC can build the chain-of-custody framework that puts the accountability clock on the carrier. A penalty only works when it reaches the decision-maker with enough force to change the decision. The current one does not. The accountability architecture that would make the next one unnecessary has not yet been built. Paul Tonsager is founder and principal of IMS Advisory and writes the Signals & Switches newsletter on freight strategy at aet1998.substack.com. Contact him at paul.tonsager@multimodalsolutions.io .

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Revised empty box fee at NY-NJ misses mark on accountability: analyst

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">New research from software vendor Altana found that some of the declining China-US trade flows last year morphed into complex, multi-leg supply chains routed through Mexico to qualify for USMCA treatment and thus avoid billions in tariffs. </div>

New research from software vendor Altana found that some of the declining China-US trade flows last year morphed into complex, multi-leg supply chains routed through Mexico to qualify for USMCA treatment and thus avoid billions in tariffs.

<div class="phx-topic">Increased trade volumes from China to Mexico via intermediary Asian nations last year demonstrated a new path for US-bound goods that were able to avoid steep tariffs — an estimated $40 billion — on imports from China, according to a report from global trade software vendor Altana. The company, in a report released Thursday, said that shipment-level supply chain data from its platform, plus a survey of 91 US trade professionals that include former lawmakers and customs officials, found that some of the declining trade flows from China to the US in 2025 morphed into more complex, multi-leg supply chains routed through Mexico in order to qualify under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Altana’s report contends that activity is illegal under current US customs rules — and that the US has lost approximately $40 billion in tariff revenue from goods that passed through Mexico and Canada under the USMCA treaty without going through a substantial transformation. “As US tariff laws became more robust, the flow of global trade shifted, with China-to-US trade contracting and trade that involved intermediary channels that fed into the USMCA market all growing,” Altana said. While China-US direct trade from January through October 2025 fell 28% to $276.5 billion compared with the same period in 2024, trade from Vietnam to Mexico rose 46% to $18.1 billion, according to data from UN Comtrade, which tracks annual global trade flows. The data also showed that trade rose 19% from Thailand to Mexico in the same period, and by 13% from Malaysia to Mexico. Direct Mexico to US imports, meanwhile, rose 6% to $450.5 billion. The Altana report suggests that these trade spikes used existing transshipment pathways, meaning the tariffs didn’t immediately induce “new, capital-intensive supply chain relationships,” but rather rerouted goods “being pumped through established networks of suppliers, facilities and actors.” To wit, Altana said transactions observed in its network on those “pre-existing transshipment routes that end in the USMCA bloc” rose 76% year over year through the first 10 months of 2025. “The estimated dollar value of shipments demonstrating patterns consistent with illegal transshipment rose sharply throughout 2025, accelerating at each major tariff escalation,” the report said. <h3>Scrutinizing transshipment </h3>The Trump administration, in the wake of assessing tariffs on dozens of US trading partners throughout 2025, said US Customs and Border Protection would be scrutinizing the shipment of goods that utilized intermediate countries of origin with lower duty rates to evade higher tariffs on the actual countries of origin. In January and February 2025, Altana said it identified $2.2 billion per month of what it called “suspected transshipment-linked trade entering the US.” By December, that number had reached $31.5 billion. The Trump administration’s so-called liberation day tariffs were rolled out in early April. “The trajectory is telling,” the report said. “As tariff complexity increased throughout 2025, so did the non-compliant rerouting of goods that were subject to tariffs.” Ultimately, the alleged non-compliance activity is related to what trade professionals call transformation, the idea that goods stopping in intermediary markets undergo enough of a change to impact country or origin determination, thus allowing those goods to use preferential trade agreements. The Altana report identified vehicles, machinery and electronics as the three sectors most represented in these transshipment paths. “A Chinese-origin vehicle subject to a 152% duty can be rerouted through a Mexico facility and potentially enter the United States at USMCA preferential rates, if it qualifies under rules of origin,” the report said. “At question is whether meaningful transformation occurred at the Mexican stop, and whether these known transshipment facilities will accurately record regional value content and other, upstream component-level information necessary to calculate and apply complex tariff rates and origin rules.” Contact Eric Johnson at <a href="mailto:eric.johnson@spglobal.com">eric.johnson@spglobal.com</a>. </div>

Increased trade volumes from China to Mexico via intermediary Asian nations last year demonstrated a new path for US-bound goods that were able to avoid steep tariffs — an estimated $40 billion — on imports from China, according to a report from global trade software vendor Altana. The company, in a report released Thursday, said that shipment-level supply chain data from its platform, plus a survey of 91 US trade professionals that include former lawmakers and customs officials, found that some of the declining trade flows from China to the US in 2025 morphed into more complex, multi-leg supply chains routed through Mexico in order to qualify under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Altana’s report contends that activity is illegal under current US customs rules — and that the US has lost approximately $40 billion in tariff revenue from goods that passed through Mexico and Canada under the USMCA treaty without going through a substantial transformation. “As US tariff laws became more robust, the flow of global trade shifted, with China-to-US trade contracting and trade that involved intermediary channels that fed into the USMCA market all growing,” Altana said. While China-US direct trade from January through October 2025 fell 28% to $276.5 billion compared with the same period in 2024, trade from Vietnam to Mexico rose 46% to $18.1 billion, according to data from UN Comtrade, which tracks annual global trade flows. The data also showed that trade rose 19% from Thailand to Mexico in the same period, and by 13% from Malaysia to Mexico. Direct Mexico to US imports, meanwhile, rose 6% to $450.5 billion. The Altana report suggests that these trade spikes used existing transshipment pathways, meaning the tariffs didn’t immediately induce “new, capital-intensive supply chain relationships,” but rather rerouted goods “being pumped through established networks of suppliers, facilities and actors.” To wit, Altana said transactions observed in its network on those “pre-existing transshipment routes that end in the USMCA bloc” rose 76% year over year through the first 10 months of 2025. “The estimated dollar value of shipments demonstrating patterns consistent with illegal transshipment rose sharply throughout 2025, accelerating at each major tariff escalation,” the report said. Scrutinizing transshipment The Trump administration, in the wake of assessing tariffs on dozens of US trading partners throughout 2025, said US Customs and Border Protection would be scrutinizing the shipment of goods that utilized intermediate countries of origin with lower duty rates to evade higher tariffs on the actual countries of origin. In January and February 2025, Altana said it identified $2.2 billion per month of what it called “suspected transshipment-linked trade entering the US.” By December, that number had reached $31.5 billion. The Trump administration’s so-called liberation day tariffs were rolled out in early April. “The trajectory is telling,” the report said. “As tariff complexity increased throughout 2025, so did the non-compliant rerouting of goods that were subject to tariffs.” Ultimately, the alleged non-compliance activity is related to what trade professionals call transformation, the idea that goods stopping in intermediary markets undergo enough of a change to impact country or origin determination, thus allowing those goods to use preferential trade agreements. The Altana report identified vehicles, machinery and electronics as the three sectors most represented in these transshipment paths. “A Chinese-origin vehicle subject to a 152% duty can be rerouted through a Mexico facility and potentially enter the United States at USMCA preferential rates, if it qualifies under rules of origin,” the report said. “At question is whether meaningful transformation occurred at the Mexican stop, and whether these known transshipment facilities will accurately record regional value content and other, upstream component-level information necessary to calculate and apply complex tariff rates and origin rules.” Contact Eric Johnson at eric.johnson@spglobal.com .

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Tariff escalation led to enforcement gaps in Mexico rerouted goods: report

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