Unboxing the Trends February: Tariffs and a New Postmaster General With Lori Boyer and Tim Ranagan From EasyPost - Ep. 56
In This Episode
Last month, Lori and Tim kicked off the Unboxing the Trends series, which features short monthly episodes covering the latest shipping and logistics happenings. In this episode, they discuss two major developments in February: new tariffs against key U.S. trading partners and the resignation of USPS’s postmaster general.
Tariffs have gone into effect
After a month-long pause, new tariffs against Canada, Mexico, and China went into effect this week. But the question remains: Will the tariffs stick?
Based on her research, Lori doesn’t think so. She believes there’s a 60% to 70% chance that the tariffs will eventually be paused again or adjusted.
“Most experts believe that these are mostly bargaining techniques. … I think that across the board, most of them are eventually going to ease up. That being said … maybe they won't. So flexibility, agility, that's the name of the game.”
USPS Postmaster General DeJoy is stepping down
This is big news if you ship with USPS—Postmaster General DeJoy recently announced that he’s stepping down. Unfortunately, we don’t yet know who will replace him or how the change will affect the Postal Service.
Lori shares a few things she’s wondering about: “[The] Ten-Year [Plan]—is that still going to be going? What's going to happen with consolidation? … [DeJoy] came from a logistics background; will we have another commerce, logistics background person? Will we go more of a traditional route? … Are we going to get more adjustments to the service levels and plans that are out there?”
We’re officially in wait-and-see mode
Hopefully, all of our questions about tariffs and the new postmaster general are answered soon; for now, as Tim puts it, the only thing we can do is wait and see.
“I think the theme of this episode is let's wait and see. That's true of the tariffs. That's true of the postmaster general news. Let's just wait and see how the dust settles, so to speak.”
Links
Transcript
Tim Ranagan 00:00
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Unboxing the Trends. I'm your host, Tim Ranagan, and I'm happy to be here again today with Lori Boyer, your host of Unboxing Logistics, to talk about some trends that we had over the last month in shipping and logistics. Lori, how's it going?
Lori Boyer 00:18
I'm doing so good. I am excited for March. It's my birthday month.
Tim Ranagan 00:24
Mine too.
Lori Boyer 00:25
That's right. We've got birthdays next week. So everyone, if you're on LinkedIn or you're watching here, send all the birthday wishes to us.
Tim Ranagan 00:33
Yeah, yours is the 11th, right, Lori? Mine's March 13th. Fun fact, I was born on Friday the 13th. So, I'm immune to all Friday the 13th effects.
Lori Boyer 00:45
Lucky, lucky. So, okay. Great month, March. We are ready.
Tim Ranagan 00:49
So Lori a lot happened over the last 30 days since we last met.
We talked previously a little bit about tariffs only to find out that they were shelved for 30 days. Over the last couple of days the tariffs have been reinstated, right? So today on this episode, we wanted to get your thoughts on tariffs again. What do you think is going to happen down the road now that those have been reinstated?
And we also wanted to talk about the USPS Postmaster General DeJoy stepping down. So let's start with tariffs, Lori. Would love to get your thoughts on what you're seeing out there over the last 30 days and maybe some thoughts on what's to come.
Lori Boyer 01:33
Okay. Tariffs are, I think, gonna be kind of the on again, off again, it's kind of like a bad relationship where you're like breaking up, no, get back together, and it may be our story for 2025 for a little bit of time.
Yeah, as you mentioned, the tariffs were paused. They went back into effect this week on Tuesday and already we're hearing some chatter that. This is Thursday as we're recording. I know you guys are getting this Friday morning, but that some of those may be paused again this evening. If that happened, throw it into the chat.
Let's talk about it. But I really think I, you know, I was doing a lot of analysis around this. So, for President Trump, the economy is a really big deal. Right. I know that he keeps a really close eye on the stocks and the market and and what's going on it. And most experts believe that these are mostly bargaining techniques that it's highly likely.
I put it earlier this week, I put out a prediction, 60 to 70 percent chance is my probability that most of them will get paused or adjusted. Obviously, we're seeing a lot of things in specifics, you know, whether it's auto or or agriculture, where maybe there's going to be some exemptions. So that being said, short term, expect some disruptions. You know, things will be ironed out.
I've seen a few articles that we can expect some delays as well at the borders as some of these are kind of taking effect. And so definitely hedge your bets. I think right now is the perfect time for you to be running some scenarios and saying okay, I do ship a lot from Canada or from China or from Mexico or you know. President Trump's talking about the EU kind of being next on the list.
So if that's somewhere that you're you're getting a lot of supplies from or that you're shipping cross border on any of those places. It will behoove you to do some of those risk management exercises. Sit down with your team be like, okay, if this stays, what, how are we going to make some adjustments? There are a lot of companies talking about adjustments as well.
Potentially, if you do have options of moving to a different country some of your supplies, your sourcing, that may be a good hedge, hedging your bet right now. But again, that being said, I think 60 to 70 percent chance that most of these tariffs settle down into kind of a much smaller. I don't think we're going to stay at 25%.
I think that across the board, most of them eventually are going to kind of ease up. That being said, that does still leave that 30 percent chance that maybe they don't. So again, flexibility, agility, that's the name of the game when it comes to tariffs. Make sure that you're keeping an eye on what's going on and do make sure that you are prepared for any potential delays.
Yeah, make sure you're getting your supplies in advance.
Tim Ranagan 04:53
Yeah. I love those recommendations and that's a lot of what we covered last month, right? Is there still so much unknown surrounding, surrounding all of these tariffs. It's best to just make sure that you have your supply chain networks in check.
Do a cost analysis. If there's going to be a slowdown, you know, make sure you're looking at all of these potential pitfalls and making sure you have solutions in place in case all of these various scenarios do in fact come to pass. But great, great suggestions, Lori. Love those recommendations.
Lori Boyer 05:26
I want to say, Tim, as well, it is, it's true.
It's the question everybody's asking. When I was at Manifest recently, in every session I was at, those were some of the questions. What's happening with tariffs? What are we going to do?
Is this going to work? And the truth is nobody really knows for sure. I'm not even sure President Trump and his staff know for sure exactly what their plan is moving forward.
So, I think that, yeah. If I knew, I would be like, probably way higher paid than I am, but all of us, just hang in there and know that you're not alone in being uncertain about what's going on.
Tim Ranagan 06:07
That's great. Well, let's let's go ahead and pivot Lori away from tariffs. Let's talk about the recent announcement that the USPS Postmaster General DeJoy has announced that he will be stepping down.
What does that mean for the world of ecommerce? What does that mean for, you know, the big four carriers? Specifically, what do you think that means for USPS in general?
Lori Boyer 06:32
Yeah, that was a big topic that hit a couple of weeks ago. He has been a very controversial figure. Some have loved his kind of bold changes he's worked to make.
Others have been frustrated by kind of the slowdowns of, you know, things getting out the raising in prices and, and so I see a lot of people who have been excited for the change and and some who are a little disappointed, of course, and you get a figure and that's what you get. It's all going to depend.
So a couple of things that I'm keeping an eye on. Timeline. So I haven't seen anything that said the timeline. If any of you have more insider info on that, let us know. But I have not seen anything. I know that I'm speaking at the National Postal Forum at the end of April, and he is still on the docket to speak there.
So that will be as well. So timeline, I'm not really sure on. A lot of questions, you know. The new plans that have come out, our 10 year deal. Is that still going to be going? What's going to happen with consolidation? It really is going to depend. You know, there's been some murmurs that maybe the whole department will get moved under the Department of Commerce.
So it, it will be really, really interesting, I think, to see. And this is one area that is going to be just something that I really recommend that you kind of keep an eye on. And who is the person? What kind of background do they have? What kind of goals do we think they're setting? Is this, you know, we brought in DeJoy as our first like not career postal worker and it didn't necessarily go as well.
You know, he came from a logistics background, but you know, will we have another kind of commerce, kind of logistics background person? Will we go more of a traditional route? Those are questions that I have. I would love to see, you know, are we going to get more adjustments to the service levels and plans that are out there?
I think it's just something that is fun and exciting to keep an eye on. And it is going to have some big impacts, I think, but again, it's kind of a wait and see. And I haven't had any whispers yet. Maybe it's you, Tim. Is that, are you going to be the new postmaster general?
Tim Ranagan 09:00
Oh yeah, secret's out. It's, it's going to be me.
Lori Boyer 09:02
Okay, okay, well, if it's Tim Ranagan, then, you know, everything is going to be running so. Unfortunately, this is kind of an episode of like, let's wait and see. It's sort of straight out of Washington, D. C. for this episode, is everything going on. And that is just what it is. To me, I kind of like change and I, it's exciting to me when, when you never know what's going to happen.
So I'm an optimist. I think that things are going to settle in. I think that we'll have some bumpy spots though. So risk management across everything is always important and, and keep your ear to the floor. That's my recommendation for next month. And we'll see what March brings, besides our birthdays.
Tim Ranagan 09:46
Right. And I would add, you know, I think the theme of this episode is let's wait and see. That's true of the tariffs. That's true of the postmaster general news. Let's just wait and see how, you know, how the dust settles, so to speak. And this goes out to our listeners. If you have any insights, right, we all operate in the world of shipping, logistics, and ecommerce.
If you have any insights into, or thoughts on how these two topics may affect, you know, shipping and logistics on the whole or ecommerce, feel free to let us know, put some comments into the chat, get involved, and we would love to hear your thoughts and actually share your thoughts on next month's episode.
Until next time, we will talk to you then.