“Although we’re approaching traditional retail peak season for ocean, it’s not likely the industry will see traditional peak volumes, as many of our 7,500 retail customers are working through inventories and being highly selective and strategic, bringing in only the essential products they must import,” said Mike Short, president of global freight forwarding for C.H. Robinson. 

Brokers like C.H. Robinson are preparing for the upcoming NMFC overhaul on July 19. "It can easily take up to 10 minutes to manually look up or confirm the freight class and code for every emailed LTL tender, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer Arun Rajan said. “For shipments the AI agent is reasoning through for the first time, it can choose a freight classification in about 10 seconds.”

“This isn’t the first time we’ve supported shippers through a tariff deadline,” said Mike Short, president of global forwarding at C.H. Robinson. “Before the April 2 cutoff, we worked with a customer to expedite their shipment and helped them reduce transportation and duty costs by over 50%. With the extension, similar requests may increase again.”