IMDG Amendment 42-24: China Dangerous Goods Shipping Rules Are Live : What Every Importer Must Know
On January 1, 2026, IMDG Amendment 42-24 became mandatory for all ocean freight shipments worldwide. For companies importing battery-powered products, electric vehicles, e-bikes, e-scooters, lithium batteries, sodium-ion batteries, and energy storage systems from China, this is not a minor technical update. It is a structural change to how every one of those shipments must be […]
Section 232 Full Customs Value 2026: The April Change That Rewrote Every Metal Importer’s Duty Bill
Update, 28 July 2026: The full-value basis introduced on 6 April 2026 remains the operative rule, and a follow-on proclamation of 1 June 2026 (effective 8 June) has since amended the framework: it lowered the US-origin metal threshold from 95% to 85%, added a new Annex I-C for mobile industrial equipment, expanded the reduced 15% […]
Trans-Pacific Freight Rates May 2026: Why Costs Are Up 37% and What Importers Must Do Now
The trans-Pacific freight rates May 2026 surge has pushed 33% to 37% month on month from April. A 40-foot container from China to a US West Coast port now costs between USD 3,015 and USD 3,685. A 20-foot container runs USD 2,475 to USD 3,025. Air freight to the US has firmed to USD 8.06 […]
EU Mercosur Trade Agreement 2026: The Complete Importer’s Guide to What Changed on May 1
After 25 years of negotiations, the EU Mercosur trade agreement 2026 is no longer a future event. On January 17, 2026, the European Union and the Mercosur countries, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, signed both the EU-Mercosur Partnership Agreement and the Interim Trade Agreement. On May 1, 2026, the Interim Trade Agreement began provisional application. […]
The Section 122 Tariff: What It Was, What You Can Still Recover, and What Replaced It
The Section 122 tariff was a 10% surcharge on almost all US imports that ran for exactly 150 days, from 24 February to 24 July 2026, and then expired by operation of law. For the five months it was in force it was the single largest variable in the landed cost of importing into the […]
EU Air Cargo Security 2026: What Every Exporter and Freight Forwarder Must Know About the New Rules
EU Regulation 2025/920 became applicable from 1 September 2025 across every EU member state, introducing the most significant structural change to EU air cargo security in over a decade. The regulation introduced a new Established Business Relationship requirement that fundamentally changed the rules under which regulated agents can accept cargo as secure. It introduced new […]
Mexico Tariff Asian Goods 2026: What Every Importer Into Mexico Must Know
On 29 December 2025, Mexico published amendments to the General Import and Export Tax Law (Ley de los Impuestos Generales de Importación y de Exportación, LIGIE) in the Diario Oficial de la Federación. Effective 1 January 2026, the Mexico tariff on Asian goods 2026 raised MFN rates on 1,463 eight-digit tariff lines across 17 industrial […]
US Tariff Evasion Enforcement 2026: Why the Legitimate Importer Is Now at Risk
The US government lost an estimated USD 107 billion to tariff evasion in 2025, according to the Dow Jones Risk Journal. Goldman Sachs economists calculated that evasion of Section 301 tariffs alone may have caused duty collection losses of USD 110 to 130 billion since 2018. Those numbers are why the enforcement response has been […]
Amazon Supply Chain Services 2026: What ASCS Does, What It Cannot Do, and Why IOR Still Matters
On May 4, 2026, Amazon officially launched Amazon Supply Chain Services, sending UPS stock down 10% and FedEx tumbling 9% in a single trading session. Amazon Supply Chain Services, known as ASCS, opens Amazon’s entire logistics infrastructure to any business that wants to use it: ocean, air, rail, and trucking combined with warehousing, fulfilment, and […]
Strait of Hormuz Closure 2026: What It Means for Your Supply Chain and Shipping Routes
Current status This is a live, fast-moving situation, and it has moved through several phases since the crisis began. The short version of where things stand today: The strait closed, reopened, then effectively closed again. Iran shut the Strait of Hormuz to normal commercial traffic on 28 February 2026. A US-Iran ceasefire in early April […]