The International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) members overwhelmingly ratified a new six-year contract on Tuesday, with nearly 99% voting in favor. The agreement, effective from October 1, 2024, to September 30, 2030, includes a 62% wage increase over the contract period. Key provisions address automation concerns, protecting union jobs while allowing for technological advancements. The contract also accelerates wage raises for new workers and strengthens healthcare plans. This ratification ends the threat of potential strikes at East and Gulf Coast ports, ensuring labor peace for the next six years. The formal signing of the contract between ILA and USMX is scheduled for March 11, 2025.

Shippers who utilize the Panama Canal have had to deal with critical droughts in the country that last year severely curtailed the number of vessels making the passage through the locks. All types of ships were impacted - container, LNG, oil, bulk, ro/ro - it made for extremely long transits for some carriers who chose to go around the southern tip of South America. Some opted to end their vessel strings at the side of the Canal they were operating. Panama has just green-lighted a reservoir plan that it hopes, when completed, will reduce the likelihood that they will need to constrain crossing numbers in the future.

To tariff or not to tariff? That is the question. Pardoning the co-opting of a famous line from Shakespeare's "Hamlet", there is legitimate uncertainty based on comments the President made on Wednesday. Importers (and exporters) have been looking at potential tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports - and the reciprocal tariffs those countries are proposing. There is also announced steel and aluminum tariffs which we've written about above, but then finally and also the aforementioned reciprocal tariffs on just about every other country. The short answer is, wait for it to be published.