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The day’s most important moves across every mode — air, rail, road, ocean and the trade that ties them together.
| ● On the Wire |
THU · AUG 20 · 2026 |
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Register today for the Houston International Maritime Conference (HIMC26) happening this November in Downtown Houston. Our agenda is out now! Buy your early bird ticket by August 31.
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OCEAN · CONTAINER SHIPPING
BY STUART CHIRLS · AMERICAN SHIPPER · AUG 19, 2026
Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd, CMA CGM and Cosco are resuming Red Sea transits despite renewed Houthi attacks, betting that rising bunker costs and Cape of Good Hope diversion expenses now outweigh the security risk, even as the expired U.S.-Iran memorandum leaves the Strait of Hormuz closure in place.
| THE TAKE — THE TAKE — With trans-Pacific rates up 9% to $7,422 per FEU and emergency fuel surcharges adding roughly $90 per FEU, shippers should expect carriers to keep passing diversion-avoidance costs through even as capacity returns to the Red Sea — watch whether rates ease as fast as transit times shrink. |
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OCEAN · PORT VOLUMES
The Port of Los Angeles posted its second-highest July on record at 960,464 TEUs — 6% below last year’s tariff-driven frontloading surge but 7.5% above the five-year July average — with Executive Director Gene Seroka pointing to resilient consumer demand and another strong August ahead.
| THE TAKE — THE TAKE — Year-to-date volume is still up 1.8% even after last year’s frontloading comparison, suggesting underlying import demand remains healthy — shippers should watch whether that strength holds once the easier year-over-year comps disappear this fall. |
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LOGISTICS · COLD CHAIN
Americold has opened an $80 million, 22,000-pallet cold storage facility at Port Saint John, New Brunswick, linking DP World’s container terminal and CPKC’s rail network — the only line connecting Canada, the U.S. and Mexico — into a single drayage-free cold chain serving Europe and South America.
| THE TAKE — THE TAKE — Rather than vertically integrating, Americold is betting on partnering with best-in-class terminal and rail operators at key nodes; cold-chain shippers routing through Atlantic Canada should watch whether this partnership model, backed by Port Saint John’s 29% container growth last year, becomes a template for other gateway cities. |
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TRADE · CROSS-BORDER
President Trump delayed planned 50% tariffs on roughly $20 billion of Canadian imports for three days to finalize a tentative trade deal, with disagreements over dairy market access and auto-tariff content requirements still unresolved even as both sides described the talks as a breakthrough.
| THE TAKE — THE TAKE — A three-day pause is not a resolution — shippers moving wine, dairy, cement, clothing or autos across the northern border should have contingency plans ready in case talks stall again, especially given how much of the disagreement still centers on unsettled auto-content rules. |
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RAIL · CARLOADS
U.S. rail traffic rose 2.4% year-over-year for the week ending Aug. 15, led by a 19.2% surge in metallic minerals and ores as Section 232 tariffs redirect demand to domestic mills, while intermodal volume grew 2.7% and forest products rebounded 10.5% despite a 12.4% monthly drop in housing starts.
| THE TAKE — THE TAKE — The metals surge is largely a tariff-and-enforcement story, not organic demand growth, so shippers in that sector should watch domestic mill capacity utilization closely — if mills can’t keep absorbing redirected volume, the carload gains could prove temporary. |
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OCT 27–28, 2026 · THE SIGNAL AT CHATTANOOGA CHOO CHOO · CHATTANOOGA, TN
FreightWaves’ flagship freight festival returns to Chattanooga blending the latest FreightTech with rapid-fire demos and top-tier networking — register by August 24 for a buy-one-get-one offer to bring a colleague along.
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American Shipper · The Daily — published weekdays
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