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The Extra Loader Decoder

An Offer They Couldn't Containerize

Over a Barrel in Marseille

I Dream of CBP Updates

Gridlock at Sea

The Hot Mess Express

The Extra Loader Decoder

Ocean carriers were having a tough 2026: Red Sea, meet my favorite Strait, Hormuz.
Voyage and vessel disruptions, higher fuel costs, insurance spikes, and Middle East instability all arrived just as freight demand softened and rates weakened.
Q1 earnings reflected the pain. (See Hapag-Lloyd and CMA balance sheets).
Between 2020 and 2022, carriers generated profits so massive that containers briefly became more valuable than the cargo inside them.
So, when carriers mention “challenging market conditions,” shippers struggle to summon sympathy. That tiny violin section remains delayed at port.
When profits weaken, carriers generally reach for two favorite tools:

1. Blank sailings
2. Holding capacity out of the market

Now, not all blank sailings are sinister. Some are operational:
- Weather disruptions
- Port congestion
- Vessel positioning issues
- Avoiding conflict zones (and certain geopolitically “exciting” Straits)
Others are more “commercial” (which means “sinister” in shipper speak) such as:
- Voyages that may lose money
- Strategic reductions designed to balance supply with demand
- Helpful little market adjustments that coincidentally support freight rates
By May 2026, carriers had already been carefully managing capacity, with MSC alone holding back roughly 16.6% of Transpac supply year-over-year.
So, what happens? OF COURSE, Asia-to-USA cargo surged as importers rushed shipments forward due to:

1. Fear of new Section 301 duties
2. CAPE/IEEPA refund cash returning to shippers
3. Looming bunker adjustment concerns
4. Factories returning after the May Day holidays
5. Retailers trying to avoid peak season congestion (and accidentally creating an even earlier peak season)

In short, carriers may have just SLAMMED the supply brakes too aggressively, just as demand SLAMMED on the gas pedal. (This poor, poor metaphorical car!)
Enter the star of our story: The Extra Loader.
The extra loader is shipping’s version of realizing you removed too many chairs before the guests arrived.
Carriers suddenly add extra vessels back into the trade lane to calm frustrated shippers, reduce congestion, and prevent competitors from cashing in on rising spot rates.
The sequence goes something like this:

1. Reduce supply to support rates.
2. Demand unexpectedly surges.
3. Capacity becomes painfully tight.
4. Paroxysms ensue.
5. Trusty extra loaders magically appear.

Which means the industry occasionally spends enormous sums adding back capacity that was very carefully removed in the first place.
The extra loader may deserve its own Schoolhouse Rock anthem. It quietly sings:

I’m just a loader. Yes, I’m only a loader.
And I’m steaming cross the Pacific swell.

Well, they canceled some sailings, to keep rates from failing,
then demand showed up, and everybody yelled.

So now I haul the boxes they forgot would need a ride,
and I hope the ports survive the tide.

For today I am still just… an extra loader.

An Offer They Couldn't Containerize

This week, the Department of Justice (DOJ) unsealed an indictment against four Chinese container manufacturers: CIMC, Shanghai Universal, CXIC, and Singamas.
Together, the Four Families allegedly control roughly 95% of the world’s dry container production, which in antitrust terms is known as “pretty much the whole neighborhood.”
Seven executives were charged, making it the sort of week where a consigliere starts clearing his calendar.
Prosecutors say the companies enforced production limits with surveillance cameras inside their own factories—not to stop theft—but to make sure nobody got ambitious and started pouring extra steel (and profits) after hours.
The alleged arrangement was beautifully simple: nobody floods the market, nobody builds excess capacity, and everybody enjoys “a little peace and quiet.” Very much a sit-down among the Families.
Prosecutors say the manufacturers also agreed not to build new factories—the industrial equivalent of the Corleones agreeing not to muscle into Brooklyn, while the Tattaglias stay out of Long Beach, NY.
The result? Container prices roughly doubled between 2019 and 2021, while some participants allegedly saw profits explode by as much as 100-fold. Luca Brasi allegedly sleeps with the margins.
For context: roughly 17 million containers circulate globally, about 5 million are moving as you read this award-winning newsletter, and ocean carriers transported 193 million containers in 2025 alone.
The grand jury secretly indicted the defendants in October 2025, then kept the file sealed until French authorities arrested executive Vick “The Stick” Ma at Charles de Gaulle Airport on April 14, 2026.
The charges are felony violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act, the federal government’s formal way of saying: “We know it was you, Fredo.”

Over a Barrel in Marseille

It’s CMA CGM’s turn in the proverbial barrel, and unfortunately this one appears to have been aged in seawater.
The world’s third-largest container carrier watched Q1 EBITDA plunge 41.3% to $1.5 billion, down from $2.53 billion a year ago.
Volumes actually rose, 1.5% to 5.9 million TEUs, which sounds encouraging right up until you discover maritime revenue still fell 8.5% to $8 billion. Average revenue per TEU dropped 9.8% to $1,351.
In other words: more cargo, less money. Like running a vineyard where the grapes are plentiful, but every bottle gets sold at the gas station. “Hey, don’t knock it!”
EBITDA margin fell 10.3 percentage points to 18.6%, which CMA CGM attributed to lower freight rates “despite a rebound in spot rates at the end of the quarter.”
Sure. That’s a little like saying the wine improved after the cellar already flooded.
Chairman Rodolphe Saade cited Middle East tensions, supply chain disruptions, and the need to “manage risks with discipline.”
Thanks to the Saade family’s Lebanese roots, CMA CGM remains one of the few major liners still regularly transiting the Red Sea while Houthi militants say howdy.
Most carriers took one look at the region and swung wide around the Cape of Good Hope. Meanwhile, CMA CGM keeps charging ahead like a French stuntman attempting to go over Niagara Falls in a Burgundy cask.
In January, CMA CGM partnered with Stonepeak to launch United Ports LLC, with Stonepeak paying $2.4 billion for a 25% stake. When shipping turns volatile, owning terminals starts looking less like diversification and more like an emotional support pet.
The company also ordered six LNG-powered vessels from Cochin Shipyard in India and plans to hire up to 1,500 Indian seafarers by the end of 2026.
After all, when the freight market points a revolver down the barrel at you, the best response is apparently to order more ships. Right?

I Dream of CBP Updates

Another week, another puff of smoke from the customs lamp. This time, the compliance genie arrived with three important updates from US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in tow.
Unfortunately, much like the original sitcom, every wish comes with a little confusion, a little chaos, and at least one moment where everyone stares at each other wondering what just happened.
This week’s episode is titled “Three Wishes from the Customs Lamp,” and features CAPE reconciliation guidance, ACE refund FAQs, and a freshly modernized portal application process.
Wish #1: “Can CAPE and Reconciliation Please Stop Complicating Each Other?”
- On May 26, CBP updated its IEEPA Duty Refunds page with new guidance explaining how reconciliation filings interact with CAPE processing.
- The practical takeaway for brokers and importers: CBP recommends holding reconciliation filings unless the filing deadline is within 30 days.
- If the deadline is approaching, CBP says filers should move forward with reconciliation entries using the duties, taxes, and fees owed—but without the increased IEEPA duties.
- CBP also confirmed it is still building phased solutions for reconciliation entries tied to CAPE declarations, which is customs language for “the storyline is continuing next week.”
- The full reconciliation questions and responses can be found on CBP’s IEEPA Duty Refunds page.
Wish #2: “Please Let My Refund Go to the Right Bank Account”
- On May 20, CBP updated its ACE Portal and ACH Refund FAQs page with additional guidance covering enrollment requirements, account setup, bank authorization, and refund tracking.
- The update itself is fairly procedural, but increasingly important as more importers prepare for potential CAPE-related refunds to actually start moving.
- Because after surviving tariff litigation, reconciliation puzzles, and ACE enrollment adventures, discovering your refund got delayed over banking setup would be a truly devastating season finale.
Wish #3: “Can ACE Portal Applications Feel Slightly Less 2009?”
- CBP also rolled out a modernized ACE Secure Data Portal account application process under CSMS # 68228015.
- The updated digital application tool is intended to streamline:
  - new ACE Portal top account applications
  - account owner updates
  - communication during account setup
- CBP says the updated system should improve processing efficiency and speed up handling for the trade community.
- Importantly, these updates apply primarily to companies that do not already have ACE Portal access.
- So yes, ACE Portal has officially entered its makeover montage phase.
- For more information on applying for an ACE Portal top account, review the Applying for an ACE Secure Data Portal Account page.
Three wishes granted. Several thousand compliance questions still wandering the desert.
As CAPE, ACE, reconciliation, and refund guidance continue shapeshifting from week to week, our compliance team remains firmly stationed beside the customs lamp—carefully choosing its wishes.

Gridlock at Sea

The Strait of Hormuz is being discussed like it’s a blockade. But it isn’t. It’s worse in a different way.
Think less “road closed” and more “everyone creeping along a six-lane interstate at four mph with their hazard lights blinking and one eye glued to the rearview mirror.”
Cargo is still moving… technically. Then again, so does a shopping cart with three rickety wheels.
Here’s the ugly part: modern supply chains can survive a shortage. What they struggle to survive is uncertainty.
A factory that knows ammonia will not arrive can adapt. A factory being told the cargo might arrive on Thursday, or Friday, or perhaps next Tuesday if the tanker elects to take the scenic route around Africa, is basically a commuter hearing “traffic is moving normally” while staring at six miles of brake lights.
One delayed vessel missing its berthing window doesn’t politely wait its turn. It detonates downstream schedules: trucks miss appointments, rail connections unravel, warehouses overflow, labor shifts get reshuffled, and suddenly an entire inland network is backed up because one ship lost 18 hours in the Gulf.
Industrial supply chains are less like warehouses and more like jet engines: they work beautifully at speed and catastrophically when things start ingesting debris.
Chemical plants, fertilizer producers, metal processors, and food manufacturers don’t really “pause.” Many operate continuous processes where stopping production falls somewhere between ruinously expensive and physically dangerous.
The cruelest twist is that the party absorbing the loss is often three contracts removed from the original shipping decision (and six degrees from Kevin Bacon). Someone in the Midwest misses production targets because two chartering departments and one insurance underwriter spent a week playing maritime hot potato in the Arabian Sea.
Here’s some practical advice: don’t wait until you’re already in traffic to discover your insurance policy excludes traffic. (Can you imagine?!)
Review supply, shipping, and offtake agreements for delay language, not just force majeure boilerplate. Coordinate cargo, business interruption, and contingent BI coverage so timing losses don’t disappear into the gap between policies.
Call it the supply-chain equivalent of leaving early for the airport. The car and pedestrian traffic may still be terrible, but at least you won’t be the one sprinting barefoot through Terminal B.

The Hot Mess Express

A New Marshal Rides into Town at the STB
- On May 15, the Senate confirmed Richard Kloster to the Surface Transportation Board (STB), handing Republicans a third seat at the poker table just as the biggest rail jackpot in decades comes galloping into the casino.
- Kloster takes over the chair once occupied by former chairman Martin Oberman, who hung up his spurs back in May 2024. The new marshal’s term runs through December 31, 2028. Happy New Year, Rich.
- The timing could not be more cinematic. Kloster rides into Washington just as the STB prepares to decide whether Union Pacific’s (UP) $85 billion bid for Norfolk Southern (NS) is finally fit to leave the station.
  - The board tossed the first filing back across the saloon floor in January with a long list of deficiencies. UP returned April 30 carrying a revised application and what we assume was a slightly humbler expression.
  - If the filing clears inspection this time, the merger enters the full frontier justice process: environmental reviews, public hearings, shipper testimony, lawyers billing by the hour, the whole rodeo.
The East Suddenly Discovers It Likes Trains
- In a plot twist worthy of a dusty railroad melodrama, domestic intermodal demand has surged since the Iran conflict began.
- The action is taking place east of the Mississippi—which has been truck country historically, because the rail hauls are too short to beat highway economics.
- Now, the numbers are stampeding. Combined domestic container traffic in March and April jumped 9% over 2025 levels, the sharpest growth since the pandemic-era freight gold rush.
- Northeast-to-Southeast traffic jumped 17.7%. Southeast-to-Northeast rose 16%. Midwest-to-Northeast climbed 17.6%. Freight that once swore allegiance to trucking is suddenly saddling up with the railroads.
- Diesel prices, tougher trucking rates, and reliable rail service apparently convinced a large chunk of eastern freight to try life on the iron horse.
The Supreme Court Hands Trucking a Wanted Poster
- On May 14, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that freight brokers are not necessarily shielded from certain state-level negligence claims in Montgomery v. Caribe Transports LLC.
- The case stems from a devastating 2017 Illinois crash that left driver Shawn Montgomery catastrophically injured after another truck struck his parked tractor-trailer.
- Industry attorneys expect carriers to face mounting pressure for higher insurance limits, which could force smaller fleets and owner-operators out of the saddle entirely.
- Fewer small carriers means tighter capacity. Tighter capacity usually means higher freight rates. And higher freight rates have a way of riding into town eventually, whether folks like it or not.
- The ruling also revives debate over federal trucking insurance minimums, which currently range from $750,000 to $5 million depending on cargo type and haven’t meaningfully changed since Dutch Reagan was riding his high horse at high noon.