Tag Archives: international trade

UK government looks to blame predicted Brexit chaos on logistics sector

Brexit is coming, and it’s clear that the government, which has been pushing Brexit along, has chosen not to invest or prioritize systems for logistics. The logistics community will be forced into dealing with a tangle of poorly understood rules and policies, documentation requirements and restrictions, that no one has bothered to foresee as a complete package. Logistics firms particularly trucking firms (though all sectors have their issues) hve complained loudly. Now it’s for a long time.

There has been ample warning for the government of the problems, despite a bit of uncertainty about whether and exactly how Brexit would happen. But The government all along has known that there would need to be massive change. They just have not bothered to assess and remedy the defects by making double sure that processes were in place and well understood, nor did they factor logistics, the ‘point person’ affected by Brexit, into the negotiations or the processes.

This article shows the laughable government response in Britain to logistics firms’ complaints. In a classic Trumpian moment, they blame the folks who are complaining.

It’s as though we were to blame the Chinese Communist party for coronavirus…

Oh, I think someone did that just recently.

By Alex Lennane 23/09/2020

Fury as UK government looks to blame predicted Brexit chaos on logistics sector – The Loadstar

Mexico trucking capacity crunch

The USMCA replacement for NAFTA has not improved anything regarding trucking between the US and Mexico. COVID-19, movement of production from the Far East to Mexico, and no change in regulations, has put demands on trucking firms and on drivers that they cannot meet without large cost increases.

This is another fine example of the law of unintended consequences. A crisis is emerging, and it is borne on the backs of the truckers themselves. Equipment shortages, payment for deadhead runs, and a change to transloading at the border replaces the vision of through-traffic by Mexican or US trucking firms serving both countries in a seamless manner.

And it is a good example of how logistics is central to the value proposition of any product. The costs of logistics must be figured in, and accurately, and any system must be built to withstand severe shocks.

Scenario analysis may be the only way. The days of Just-In-Time are almost over.

By Ian Putzger, Americas correspondent 16/09/2020

Link: https://theloadstar.com/capacity-crunch-gives-shippers-a-pain-as-us-mexico-trucking-rates-soar/