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US President Donald Trump should “a decade or two of persistent efforts” to redraw the world supply chains using prices, the boss of the second largest container shipping group in the world warned.
Vincent Clerc, Director General of AP Møller Maersk, told Financial Times that commercial volumes between the United States and China had lost 30 to 40% in April due to Trump's swinging rates, but other routes, such as between Asia and other emerging markets, had remained strong.
“The supply chain today in the world is something that has been built over the decades. If you want to upset or change it deeply, it will take decades,” he said. “It takes time to companies to make decisions, the construction of factories. It is very unrealistic that the supply chains are changed very quickly due to the prices. ”
Maersk is a bell tower for world trade, carrying one in five containers through the sea and its Views of supply chains are closely monitored.
The Danish group warned Thursday that world trade could contract this year, reducing its previous growth in container demand by approximately 4% to less than 1%.
“He is bumpy today. But so far, this mainly affects the relationships and volumes of China-US,” said Clerc.
He added that China-US trade represented around 5% of the volumes of Maersk, so the decline has so far been around 2% of its total. “We responded by moving almost 20% of our capacities on China-US to other roads, in particular the Far East towards other emerging markets. It turned out to be good,” he said.
The CEO of Maersk said that the greater threat could be the impact of tariff training on the economy. “If things are rooted, inflation continues to increase and we see a risk of recession in the United States, then volumes will suffer in the second period. Our role at Maersk is to support our customers thanks to this test,” added Clerc.
Trump expressed a repeated desire for American companies to bring their manufacturing home and for foreign groups to have more American production.
But Clerc was skeptical, arguing that the United States lacked work. “There is no production of snowboard boots outside China. If you want to change this, it will take time-or you have to stop the snowboard. I would not overestimate the weight of the United States when it comes to world trade,” he added.
Interviews between us and Chinese officials, as well as the planned signature of a American commercial deal On Thursday, “good signs” of potential de -escalation, said the managing director of Maersk.
His comments came like Maersk reported Results of the first quarter before analysts' expectations and he maintained its directives in the full year.
Income increased by $ 13.3 billion, and operating profit increased by more than seven to 1.2 billion dollars. Maersk plans to achieve an underlying operating profit from zero to $ 3 billion this year.
