Less than a year ago, Fedex and UPS executives talked about how they handled an avalanche of packages from China to US consumers.
“Explosive” is how Carol Tomé, executive director of UPS, described in July the volume of shipments of electronic commerce companies that sell Chinese products in the United States. And Fedex’s customer director Brie Carere said about those companies in June: “No carrier can meet all their needs.”
But this torrent is expected to decrease a drip after President Trump closed a escape on Friday that had allowed China’s cheap products to enter the United States without paying tariffs.
The business of transporting hundreds of millions of low -value shipments on up to 60 freighter flights a day between China and the United States could now wilt.
A fall in such shipments could deprive companies such as UPS, Fedex and DHL or a great source of income. Airlines, mainly those that only transport load, and smaller logistics companies could also suffer. Passersby airlines can also be hurt a little because they also carry some of those packages.
UPS said last week that he expected the income of China’s shipping packages to the United States, its most profitable commercial lane, decrease approximately 25 percent in the second quarter of this year, of the previous year. UPS also announced that it would reduce 20,000 jobs this year as part of a long -term plan to reduce costs, and said the prevention of “macroconomic uncertainty” to update their income and profits forecasts by 2025.
Mrs. Tomé said that China-To-Ups’ business was responsible for 11 percent of the company’s international revenues. She suggested that the company could take commercial tensions calmly, saying that, when trade between China and the United States declined the duration of Trump’s first term, increased between China and the rest of the world.
But because Trump is now wearing a more aggressive and broader commercial war, logistics companies may not be able to compensate for lost sales in other places, since they are capable of each in the first term, analysts said.
“It was a little full of potholes last time,” said Jay Cushing, an analyst at Gimme Credit. “It took a little time that things will be level, but this is likely to take it.”
The tariffs that Mr. Trump imposed on Chinese products who fulfilled their first mandate helped disagree with China’s economic goods.
To avoid those rates, Chinese vendors sent more and more products to the United States under the escape that closed on Friday for imports from Continental and Hong Kong China.
Known as the exemption of Minimis, the lagoon allowed buyers to import goods worth $ 800 or less without paying rates or completing detailed customs paperwork. Now that the exemption is gone, American buyers will have to pay both Axy tariffs and 145 percent in Chinese products, adding $ 14.50 to the cost of a $ 10 shirt.
Temu, one of the largest electronic commerce companies that sell Chinese products, said last week that it was no longer sending China orders directly to US consumers. “All sales in the United States now managed by local vendors, with orders from the country,” Temu said in a statement.
As the end of the exemption progressed, Wall Street analysts pressed the delivery companies to predict the impact.
When asked in an investor call in March what participation in the income came from the minimis shipments, the executive director of Fedex, Raj Subramaniam, said it was a “minority.”
Isabel Rollison, a spokeswoman for Fedex, refused to sacrifice a more precise estimate. “In terms of our income divided by geography, we serve an extremely diversified client base in more than 220 countries and territories,” he said in a statement.
DHL, based in Bonn, Germany, also refused to say what percentage of his business came from the minimis shipments from China. Glennah Ivey-Walker, a DHL spokeswoman, said he represented “only a small portion of our general volume to the United States and our general business volume in the US market.”
Finishing the exemption could have a worse leg for carriers did not have the leg for a late change to the Trump administration rules.
The lowest value assets were established to be subject to strict customs rules that require detailed documentation. But the administration at the end of last month issued an exemption that allowed the goods to be treated more indulgently.
Some trade experts said that the change of the administration undermined the collection of rates that deprived Customs and the border protection of the information he needed to ensure that imports paid the correct amount of import tariffs.
“If you don’t know exactly what good is, it is difficult to know what is the correct potential value or what should be the right rate,” said Lori Wallach, director of a commercial program of the American Economic Liberties project, an organization that this.
But some customs lawyers said that, just after the exemption, detailed information would still be requested.
The exemption occurred after DHL stopped making some shipments subject to the paperwork requirement, and after talking with the members of the Trump administration.
Mrs. Ivey-Walker, the DHL spokeswoman, said the exemption would not “hinder the collection of tariffs or somehow prevent the continuous efforts of the government to protect its borders.” He added that DHL had spoken with the administration to highlight the delays that could occur if the detailed paperwork requirement was applied.
A strong decrease in low value shipments could also shake the airlines.
Air cargo shipments had already slowed before the end of Friday’s exemption.
In mid -April, Continental China and Hong Kong air cargo traffic to the United States decreased approximately 16 percent compared to the previous year, according to Worldacd, a data signature of the industry. And experts say that traffic is likely to decrease more in the coming weeks.
“We hope to see that between 30 and 40 percent of China’s capacity to the United States they leave the market,” said Derek Lossing, founder of Cirrus Global Advisors, an electronic commerce consulting firm and supply chain.
The most active carriers in the Electronic Commerce between China and the United States include two US cargo airline companies. UU., Air Worldwide and Kalitta Air; Cathay Pacific Airways by Hong Kong; And the load divisions of Chinese airlines, according to several air load experts.
American passenger airlines are not so vulnerable because they operate relatively few flights between the United States and Continental China and Hong Kong.
To compensate for losses, Chinese companies can try to sell customs to customers in other places, even in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Latin America, experts said.
There are already signs of such change. While air load shipments from China to the United States decreased in the week prior to the expiration of the exemption, flights to Miami, a Center for Flights to Latin America, rose slightly, according to Mr. The loss.
