In 2010, the Daily Mail claimed that the most boring day of the last century from a newsworthy point of view was April 11th 1954. The article stated:
“April 11 of that year has been identified by experts as the most boring of the 20th century – a day when nothing of note happened.
After feeding 300 million facts into a new computer search engine they have announced there were no key news events or births and deaths of famous people.
The best the machine could muster for the day was the fact that Belgium had its fourth post-war general election and a Turkish academic who taught electronics was born.”
In 1975 Relay Technical Transport was launched, so this date precedes our arrival onto the logistics stage by just over 20 years. But on the 50th anniversary of our company’s foundation we, like many other businesses I suspect, might look back on April 11th 1954 with some nostalgia to a time when the present kind of global disruption did not predominate. But today, we are where we are.
Political Interventions
While the Chancellor’s Spring Statement to the Commons on Wednesday 26th March would have normally entailed a type of financial “work in progress” report, many in advance labelled the event as an emergency budget.
A post by Business Matters includes a number of quotes from experts, including about the detrimental effect of the rise in employers NIC. One contributor stated:
“Show me an employer in the UK that is not critically reviewing their costs of employment and making decisions on headcount or recruitment as a result.”
The article concludes: “As the UK faces slow growth and fiscal constraints, business leaders remain cautious. While there was broad support for tech investment and AI-led public sector reform, the absence of meaningful incentives for SMEs, investors and entrepreneurs leaves questions over whether today’s statement will be enough to restore confidence and ignite economic momentum.”
Of course, while the measures announced by the Chancellor Rachel Reeves in last year’s Autumn budget and in her recent Spring Statement are significant for the UK economy, the effect of the US initiatives on international trade tariffs announced on 3rd April are truly momentous, both for this country and across the globe. Indeed, the BBC’s BBC’s Faisal Islam on 3rd April claimed that this was “The biggest change to global trade in 100 years.”
The post stated “The true measure of these changes will be significant changes to long-standing global avenues of trade.
“At its heart this is a universal tariff of 10% on nearly all imports into the US for every country, coming in on Friday night. On top of that dozens of ‘worst offenders’ will be charged reciprocally for having trade surpluses.
“The tariffs on Asian nations are truly remarkable. They will break the business models of thousands of companies, factories, and possibly entire nations.”
The US and the UK have a balanced trading relationship and comparatively to some countries, including in the EU, the tariffs levied have been less harsh, excepting in motor manufacturing where, at time of writing, a 25% tariff on imports to the US has been imposed. The UK government is currently in negotiations to improve the position with the US administration, in particular to avoid a severe outcome to jobs and prosperity in this vital element of our economy but also across the range of other sectors.
Resilience and Agility
Tariffs have a significant impact on global transport and logistics by altering trade flows and supply chain strategies. As a result, logistics providers may need to redesign transport routes, renegotiate contracts, and invest in new infrastructure to accommodate these changes, affecting efficiency and delivery timelines.
Barriers to global free trade can cause disruptions across supply chains, impacting inventory management, warehousing needs, and overall logistics costs. So transport and logistics companies need to remain agile, adapting to a fragmented trade environment by enhancing flexibility, investing in digital tracking systems, and developing contingency plans to stay competitive and resilient in a tariff-influenced global economy.
Governments on both sides of the Atlantic can be criticised for a lack of joined-up thinking in assessing the unintended consequences of their actions on business and trade. Fortunately, leading logistics companies like Relay excel in joined-up thinking as a core principle of our services.
Aided by our experience and the use of advanced technological resources, we have established national and global operational networks that have remained resilient and effective throughout a range of challenges such as the covid pandemic. So our customers can have absolute confidence that they will receive the highest standards of services and support to their businesses throughout what will be challenging times in months to come.