WESCCON Welcomes Coppersmith

Executive Vice President Bud Coppersmith, Vice President of Corporate Compliance and Portland Branch Manager Victoria Lane and Director of Operations Tom Scott attended the annual WESCCON conference of west coast customs brokers and freight forwarders in San Diego, California, earlier this month.

WESCCON is an opportunity for logistics companies doing business anywhere along the west coast – from the Canadian to the Mexican borders – to gather, and hear from senior government officials from Washington as well as attorneys, sureties, and officials from the major gateway ports. Also featured is the Pacific Coast Council’s lobbyist Peter Friedmann who brings his “Man from DC” report on the state of trade regulations and legislation being discussed in Washington.

Blanked sailings become commonplace

Anxious to hold onto the profits and control they had during the pandemic, carriers are struggling to amend capacity and availability to keep rates up as demand flops worldwide. Coupled with new lockdowns coming from China’s zero-COVID policy in Ningbo, Shanghai, and Tianjin, there could be more cuts coming in addition to the issues that arise from just blanked sailings. If we didn’t learn anything in the pandemic, now is the perfect time for making contingency plans for your supply chain. 

As proven by disruption in the transportation market, there are situations where contingencies are filed away, ready to deploy in outlier situations that require creative problem solving. In other cases, for longer-term issues, looking into methodical corrections that start to untangle the supply chain snarls can help you rebuild a faster, more efficient logistics plan by using decades of experience to proactively seize the opportunities that come in a near-shoring boom.