Declaring that it is furthering its mission to advance supply chain excellence across the globe, the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) today announced the launch of seven new International Roundtables.
The new groups have been established in Mexico City, Monterrey, Guadalajara, Toronto, Panama City, Lisbon, and Sao Paulo. They join CSCMP’s 40 existing roundtables across the U.S. and worldwide, with each one offering a way for members to grow their knowledge and practice professional networking within their state or region. Overall, CSCMP roundtables produce over 200 events per year—such as educational events, networking events, or facility tours—attracting over 6,000 attendees from 3,000 companies worldwide, the group says.
“The launch of these seven Roundtables is a testament to CSCMP’s commitment to advancing supply chain innovation and fostering professional growth globally,” Mark Baxa, President and CEO of CSCMP, said in a release. “By extending our reach into Latin America, Canada and enhancing our European Union presence, and beyond, we’re not just growing our community—we’re strengthening the global supply chain network. This is how we equip the next generation of leaders and continue shaping the future of our industry.”
The new roundtables in Mexico City and Monterrey will be inaugurated in early 2025, following the launch of the Guadalajara Roundtable in 2024, said Javier Zarazua, a leader in CSCMP’s Latin America initiatives.
“As part of our growth strategy, we have signed strategic agreements with The Logistics World, the largest logistics publishing company in Latin America; Tec Monterrey, one of the largest universities in Latin America; and Conalog, the association for Logistics Executives in Mexico,” Zarazua said. “Not only will supply chain and logistics professionals benefit from these strategic agreements, but CSCMP, with our wealth of content, research, and network, will contribute to enhancing the industry not only in Mexico but across Latin America.”
Likewse, the Lisbon Roundtable marks the first such group in Portugal and the 10th in Europe, noted Miguel Serracanta, a CSCMP global ambassador from that nation.
North American manufacturers have begun stockpiling goods to buffer against the impact of potential tariffs threatened by incoming Trump Administration, building up safety stocks to guard against higher imported costs, according to a report from New Jersey business software firm GEP.
That surge in orders has sparked a jump in production, shrinking the level of spare capacity in global supply chains to its lowest level since June, the firm said in its “GEP Global Supply Chain Volatility Index.” By the numbers, that index rose to -0.20 in November, from -0.39 the month before, based on GEP’s measurement of demand conditions, shortages, transportation costs, inventories, and backlogs from its monthly survey of 27,000 businesses.
Another impact of the trend has been to trigger a surge in procurement activity by manufacturers in Asia—especially China—as new orders rebounded sharply. Only India reported a greater rise in raw material purchases than China in November. And preparations to ramp up production even further were evidenced data showing factory procurement activity across Asia rising at its fastest pace for three-and-a-half years, GEP said.
In sharp contrast, Europe's industrial recession worsened in November, in large part due to Germany's deepening manufacturing downturn. Factories in that region went deeper into retrenchment mode, as demand for inputs from manufacturers in Europe was its weakest since December 2023.
"In November, U.S. manufacturers, particularly in the consumer goods sector, increased their safety stocks to help blunt any immediate tariff increases," John Piatek, vice president, GEP, said in a release. "In contrast, Chinese manufacturers are getting busier as a result of government stimulus and growth in exports, led by automotives and technology products. Strategically, many global companies have a wait-and-hope approach, while simultaneously planning to remake their global supply chains to respond to a tariff and trade war in 2025 and beyond."
Asia Pacific origin markets are continuing to contribute an outsize share of worldwide air cargo growth this year, generating more than half (56%) of the global +12% year-on-year (YoY) increase in tonnages in the first 10 months of 2024, according to an analysis by WorldACD Market Data.
The region’s strong contribution this year means Asia Pacific’s share of worldwide outbound tonnages overall has risen two percentage points to 41% from 39% last year, well ahead of Europe on 24%, Central & South America on 14%, Middle East & South Asia (MESA) with 9% of global volumes, North America’s 8%, and Africa’s 4%.
Not only does the Asia Pacific region have the largest market share, but it also has the fastest growth, Netherlands-based WorldACD said. After origin Asia Pacific with its 56% share of global tonnage growth this year, Europe came in as the second origin region accounting for a much lower 17% of global tonnage growth. That was followed closely by the MESA region, which contributed 14% of outbound tonnage growth this year despite its small size, bolstered by traffic shifting to air this year due to continuing disruptions to the region’s ocean freight markets caused by violence in the vital Red Sea corridor to the Suez Canal.
The types of freight that are driving Asia Pacific dominance in air freight exports begin with “general cargo” contributing almost two thirds (64%) of this year’s growth, boosted by large volumes of e-commerce traffic flying consolidated as general cargo. After that, “special cargo” generated 36%, with 80% of that portion consisting of the vulnerables/high-tech product category.
Among the top 5 individual airport or city origin growth markets, the world’s busiest air cargo gateway Hong Kong also remained the biggest single generator of YoY outbound growth in October, as it has for much of this year. Hong Kong’s +15% YoY tonnage increase generated around twice the growth in absolute chargeable weight of second-placed Miami, even though the latter had recorded +31% YoY growth compared with its tonnages in October last year. Dubai was the third-biggest outbound growth market, thanks to its +45% YoY increase in October, closely followed by Shanghai and Tokyo.
And on the inverse side of the that trendline, the top 5 YoY decreases in inbound tonnages were recorded in Teheran, Beirut, Beijing, Dhaka, and Zaragoza. Notably, Teheran’s and Beirut’s inbound tonnages almost completely wiped out as most commercial flights to and from Iran and Lebanon were suspended last month amid Middle East violence; tonnages at both airports were down by -96%, YoY, in October. Other location that saw steep declines included Dhaka, Beirut and Zaragoza – affected by political unrest, conflict, and flooding, respectively –followed by China’s Qingdao and Mexico’s Guadalajara.
Specifically, 48% of respondents identified rising tariffs and trade barriers as their top concern, followed by supply chain disruptions at 45% and geopolitical instability at 41%. Moreover, tariffs and trade barriers ranked as the priority issue regardless of company size, as respondents at companies with less than 250 employees, 251-500, 501-1,000, 1,001-50,000 and 50,000+ employees all cited it as the most significant issue they are currently facing.
“Evolving tariffs and trade policies are one of a number of complex issues requiring organizations to build more resilience into their supply chains through compliance, technology and strategic planning,” Jackson Wood, Director, Industry Strategy at Descartes, said in a release. “With the potential for the incoming U.S. administration to impose new and additional tariffs on a wide variety of goods and countries of origin, U.S. importers may need to significantly re-engineer their sourcing strategies to mitigate potentially higher costs.”
Freight transportation providers and maritime port operators are bracing for rough business impacts if the incoming Trump Administration follows through on its pledge to impose a 25% tariff on Mexico and Canada and an additional 10% tariff on China, analysts say.
Industry contacts say they fear that such heavy fees could prompt importers to “pull forward” a massive surge of goods before the new administration is seated on January 20, and then quickly cut back again once the hefty new fees are instituted, according to a report from TD Cowen.
As a measure of the potential economic impact of that uncertain scenario, transport company stocks were mostly trading down yesterday following Donald Trump’s social media post on Monday night announcing the proposed new policy, TD Cowen said in a note to investors.
But an alternative impact of the tariff jump could be that it doesn’t happen at all, but is merely a threat intended to force other nations to the table to strike new deals on trade, immigration, or drug smuggling. “Trump is perfectly comfortable being a policy paradox and pushing competing policies (and people); this ‘chaos premium’ only increases his leverage in negotiations,” the firm said.
However, if that truly is the new administration’s strategy, it could backfire by sparking a tit-for-tat trade war that includes retaliatory tariffs by other countries on U.S. exports, other analysts said. “The additional tariffs on China that the incoming US administration plans to impose will add to restrictions on China-made products, driving up their prices and fueling an already-under-way surge in efforts to beat the tariffs by importing products before the inauguration,” Andrei Quinn-Barabanov, Senior Director – Supplier Risk Management solutions at Moody’s, said in a statement. “The Mexico and Canada tariffs may be an invitation to negotiations with the U.S. on immigration and other issues. If implemented, they would also be challenging to maintain, because the two nations can threaten the U.S. with significant retaliation and because of a likely pressure from the American business community that would be greatly affected by the costs and supply chain obstacles resulting from the tariffs.”
New tariffs could also damage sensitive supply chains by triggering unintended consequences, according to a report by Matt Lekstutis, Director at Efficio, a global procurement and supply chain procurement consultancy. “While ultimate tariff policy will likely be implemented to achieve specific US re-industrialization and other political objectives, the responses of various nations, companies and trading partners is not easily predicted and companies that even have little or no exposure to Mexico, China or Canada could be impacted. New tariffs may disrupt supply chains dependent on just in time deliveries as they adjust to new trade flows. This could affect all industries dependent on distribution and logistics providers and result in supply shortages,” Lekstutis said.
German third party logistics provider (3PL) Arvato has agreed to acquire ATC Computer Transport & Logistics, an Irish company that provides specialized transport, logistics, and technical services for hyperscale data center operators, high-tech freight forwarders, and original equipment manufacturers, the company said today.
The acquisition aims to unlock new opportunities in the rapidly expanding data center services market by combining the complementary strengths of both companies.
According to Arvato, the merger will create a comprehensive portfolio of solutions for the entire data center lifecycle. ATC Computer Transport & Logistics brings a robust European network covering the major data center hubs, while Arvato expands this through its extensive global footprint.