The U.S. auto industry urged President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday not to saddle imported cars and auto parts with steep tariffs, after the U.S. Commerce Department sent a confidential report to the White House late on Sunday with its recommendations for how to proceed.
Author Archives: Jeffrey Goh
Imports at the nation’s major retail container ports have dipped since peaks seen last fall but remain at higher-than-usual levels as a possible increase in tariffs on goods from China approaches in March, the National Retail Federation (NRF) and Hackett Associates said.
Airfreight rates on the transpacific trade lane continued to come under pressure in January as contacts say that demand at the start of 2019 has been lacklustre. Figures from Tac Index show that airfreight rates on services from Hong Kong to North America declined by 0.8% year on year to an average of $3.66 per kg.
For the last 10 years, freight railroads and their regulators have emphasized the safety benefits of Positive Train Control (PTC). But with the technology getting closer to being up and running on every freight track mile required by federal mandate, the nation’s big railroads are starting to consider how PTC may help them make better use of their assets.
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) late last week released a status update regarding railroads’ self-reported progress toward implementing positive train control (PTC) by 2018’s end. All 41 railroads either met the end-of-2018 statutory deadline for full implementation or submitted requests for an extension up to two additional years by demonstrating they met or exceeded certain criteria for an alternative schedule, such as by installing all wayside systems and training all employees, the status report shows.
The Association of American Railroads (AAR) today reported U.S. rail traffic for the week ending February 16, 2019. For this week, total U.S. weekly rail traffic was 523,915 carloads and intermodal units, down 3 percent compared with the same week last year. Total carloads for the week ending February 16 were 250,236 carloads, down 3.9 percent compared with the same week in 2018, while U.S. weekly intermodal volume was 273,679 containers and trailers, down 2.1 percent compared to 2018.
For the first time since 2014, New Jersey has topped the American Transportation Research Institute’s annual list of the most congested bottlenecks for trucks in the country.
For December, the most recent month for which data is available, the TCI came in at 11.46, a significant increase over November’s 5.84 and October’s 3.17. FTR said strong sequential volume gains, as well as a favorable fuel environment paced this growth.
The National Retail Federation today forecast that retail sales during 2019 will increase between 3.8 percent and 4.4 percent to more than $3.8 trillion despite threats from an ongoing trade war, the volatile stock market and the effects of the government shutdown.
The turbulence in the stock market during the last month of the year has led many to forget that the overall state of the economy was positive in 2018, as it performed well by most measures, including year-over-year growth and a strong labor market.