Spotlight
EU ports face months more congestion
North European ports will continue to face disruption and congestion“ for many more months,” with little improvement in the series of factors contributing to the ongoing bottlenecks, according to an executive with the port of Antwerp-Bruges. Luc Arnouts, vice president of international relations and networks at Europe’ s busiest port, said container yards were full at the main hubs, ships were arriving outside their berthing windows, intermittent strikes at some ports were having a knock-on effect, carrier alliances were reshuffling capacity, and low water on the Rhine and delays in hinterland moves were all holding up traffic.“ Terminal occupancy is high in all the major ports so when ships do not arrive within their berthing window and arrive a day later, that disrupts the whole operation,” he told the CHAINge Europe supply chain conference in mid- June. Strong demand for much of the year has kept North European ports under pressure, slowing attempts to mitigate the bottlenecks. The latest Asia – Europe volume data from Container Trades Statistics( CTS) is for April, when 1.64 million TEUs were transported westward, an increase of 8.6 % year over year and 6 % from March. In the first four months of 2025, total Asia – Europe volumes climbed 9 % year over year to 6.13 million TEUs, with the Asia – North Europe segment rising 6.6 % to 3.72 million TEUs and Asia – Mediterranean surging 12.1 % to 2.4 million TEUs, according to CTS.
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US chassis ready for import surge
As an expected wave of imports from China arrives at US ports in the coming weeks, the country’ s three largest marine chassis providers say they are pulling idle equipment from storage, inspecting and repairing units, and repositioning chassis to key inland hubs to avoid a repeat of the pandemic-era shortages. TRAC Intermodal, DCLI and FlexiVan Leasing, the US’ top three lessors by fleet size, respectively, began unstacking chassis shortly after the Trump administration announced a 90-day pause on the 145 % tariffs on Chinese imports. TRAC owns more than 200,000 marine chassis, while DCLI has about 140,000 units and FlexiVan about 120,000. None of the companies disclosed the number of chassis they’ ve taken out of longterm storage, but each said the total is in the“ tens of thousands.”“ Our current utilization, our working fleet, is rather soft,” said Val Noel, chief operating officer of TRAC.“ But we think this could be a little bit like a tsunami, and we want to have extra capacity to make sure we don’ t have any service disruptions.”
3PL demand growing amid multiplying risks
Volatility in global trade is forcing shippers to rethink their supply chains and accelerating demand for third-party logistics( 3PL) services, according to research firm Armstrong & Associates. Global logistics firms are still recovering from 2023, when their combined revenue plummeted 21.4 % after rising rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic, Armstrong & Associates said in its annual report on the top 50 domestic and global 3PLs by revenue. Amazon topped the list with $ 156.2 billion in 3PL-related revenue, according to Armstrong & Associates. DHL Supply Chain & Global Forwarding was second in the global
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3PL rankings, followed by Kuehne + Nagel. C. H. Robinson Worldwide was second among the domestic 3PLs, followed by GXO Logistics and J. B. Hunt Transport Services. In 2024, the global 3PL market stabilized and grew 3.4 % to $ 1.22 trillion. The risk created by trade uncertainty and expanding conflicts will help push global gross 3PL revenue up another 2.7 % in 2025 to $ 1.25 trillion, according to Armstrong. That revenue should grow again by 4.9 % in 2026 to $ 1.3 trillion, it said.
US tariffs force structural supply chain shifts
US tariff whiplash is forcing those who manage supply chains to shrink planning horizons, increase inventory carrying costs and put strategic investment on hold, according to the CEO of the Association for Supply Chain Management. While the Trump administration pursues its so-called“ reciprocal trade agenda,” Abe Eshkenazi said the inability to predict the next tariff move was unsettling for cargo owners and their service providers.“ A lot of the strategic investments and a lot of the capital investments have been put on hold,” Eshkenazi told the Journal of Commerce in an interview this week at the CHAINge Europe
6 Journal of Commerce | July 7, 2025 www. joc. com