supply chain News Updates

Trade disruptions from China’s lockdowns and the war in Ukraine are seen doing for Southeast Asia what the U.S.’s spat with Beijing couldn’t meaningfully do — redistribute supply chains.

The Biden administration on June 1 will announce $2.1 billion in new funding to bolster food supply chains, including initiatives to expand small- and midsized processing plants, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture official.

Some supply strains in the U.S. are easing, two years after a jump in demand started emptying shelves, snarling shipping and sowing the seeds of soaring inflation.

Retired U.S. Army Gen. Stephen Lyons has been appointed as the new port and supply chain envoy to a group created by the White House last June to mitigate economic problems arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Supply chain managers quit their jobs last year at the highest rate since at least 2016 due to a mix of burnout and a desire for fatter paychecks.

A vast swath of North America from the Great Lakes to the West Coast is at risk of blackouts this summer as heat, drought, shuttered power plants and supply chain woes strain the electric grid, according to a report.

China appears to be gradually easing its lockdown of Shanghai, but that won’t bring immediate relief to global supply chain congestion, according to a major shipping company.

CLEVELAND — More than 1.6 million tons of cargo ship carrying capacity was delayed for 28 days due to ice conditions on Lake Superior, Lake Huron, Lake Michigan and in Green Bay. A lack of Coast Guard icebreakers hampered efforts to meet the needs of commerce.

HMM Co., the biggest container-shipping line in South Korea, will continue deploying more vessels than usual to try to meet demand from the country’s exporters struggling to transport goods overseas.

Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, seaport officials on the West Coast, International Longshore and Warehouse Union negotiators and leaders with the Pacific Maritime Association are talking optimistically that a long-term contract with workers can be negotiated this summer.