It’s not (just) about shipping: Q2’24 Trade and Supply Chain Outlook

Supply chains are coping admirably with the disruptions of late 2023 and early 2024, although there are plenty of challenges, ranging from the physical to the political, to be dealt with for the rest of the year.

Like life in Jurassic Park, supply chains find a way. Logistics operators are coping with disruptions to shipping via the Red Sea and Panama Canal, though there's still a long way to go before the peak shipping season.

Trade activity continues to recover, and while there is a sharp rebound in US-inbound trade in the first quarter, we're more cautious about the year as a whole and globally. Inventories in a high-interest-rate environment may continue to be depressed. As expected in our prior outlook, corporate spending on resilience via diversification remains restricted, though reshoring continues to be an area of interest given the political risks facing supply chain decision-makers.

The year of elections is unfolding with India, Mexico, and the European Parliamentary elections all looming in the second quarter. The latter has implications for evolving regulations in corporate reporting and environmental legislation, which could have a significant impact on shipping but are still "under construction". Later in the year, the US elections and EU-China rivalry will come back into focus.