Coronavirus and its Effects on U.S. Imports and Exports

How Ship Overseas is handling the situation and what to expect…

As we face unchartered territory with the COVID-19 pandemic, recently declared a U.S. national emergency by President Trump, we here at Ship Overseas would be remiss if we did not advise you of what to expect during this difficult time. We are doing our best to keep our customers advised of next steps, but please note many factors are out of our control and/or change hourly or daily as news breaks.

First and foremost, please know that Coronavirus has not stopped Ship Overseas from shipping, unlike many of our competitors.

We have compiled a list of major shipping issues concerning the Coronavirus outbreak as it impacts U.S. imports and exports.

• RoRo shipping (roll on roll off) will NOT be affected. Expect business as usual here.
• Container bookings have been limited and scaled back, but only to countries that ship via container.
• Ocean carriers will continue to add blank/void sailings into their posted scheduling.
• Equipment shortages will occur as it is prohibited from moving inland.
• Equipment overflow will also occur within West Coast terminals as vessels sit idle due to blank sailings.
• Delays in logistics are inevitable but will be mitigated as best as possible.

China is slowly recovering from the pandemic, while the U.S. is now on the front line of the outbreak. As China’s workforce slowly starts to regain normal operations, this should greatly affect the situations we have listed above and positively improve tensions within the supply chain.

 

Above all, we ask for your patience as we, too, are learning new things about Coronavirus and how it affects our industry every single day. We will work hard to keep you apprised of situations/delays/service issues as soon as we can. Here at Ship Overseas, we will do our best to minimalize delays and inconvenience for our customers.

 

As always, you can get in touch with us anytime if you have any questions or concerns about your existing or future shipments. Call us toll free at 888-805-4994 or 858-547-0840 or send us a message online.

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