Performance from US cotton shippers has never been so compromised. Failure to execute threatens the competitiveness of US agriculture and certainly the fate of our members, who provide the key services of risk management, logistical services, and liquidity provision to the broader market. Within the last year, US cotton exporters fell significantly behind our historical average, and when compared with scheduled shipments, we have reached a pandemic-era high, creating unprecedented costs and commercial risks.
ACSA has continuously stated that since the beginning of the pandemic, systemic supply chain inundation and challenges will remain until total inbound cargo becomes rightsized for available US infrastructure. Only in recent months have we seen outsized volume of imported cargo begin to break and proceed to break sharply due to broader macroeconomic slowdown.
Assuming this downturn of inbound freight does not occur in harmony with another major disruption such as the ever-ominous and contemporary labor dispute impacting rail service, our intermodal supply chain will experience a much-needed pause and opportunity to reset.
ACSA’s focus is facing forward on how we can be better equipped and prepared to efficiently execute, providing commercial confidence to our customers, when demand for US cotton and other commercial activity simultaneously increase. Strategic utility of funding scheduled for investment in US infrastructure, assurance of reasonable service from ocean carriers without categorical denials, breakthroughs in data visibility and integrity with cargo receiving windows identified as the leading priority, opening markets to introduce and utilize chassis, and commercially applying sound principles of merchant haulage freight are all key tenets of our advocacy to achieve readiness and resilience moving forward.