Supply Chain Research

2021 Outlook: COVID-21, mines and straits – outlier risks for supply chains

January 7, 2021

After a tumultuous 2020 global supply chains continue to face a wide range of outlier risks in 2021 that are outside most planners’ core scenario. This report highlights four major buckets of risks and approaches for mitigating them. A significant mutation of SARS-COV-2 that renders current va... Read more →

2020 Outlook: The Year It All (Might) Go Wrong – Black Swan Risks

January 20, 2020

There’s no shortage of black swan risks – low probability, high impact events – that can lead to physical and / or financial disruption of global supply chains in 2020. We identify eight examples. A contested result to the U.S. election could cast doubt over the direction of trade policy and m... Read more →

Talks, Reflation and Decline in Global Policy – What You Missed Over The Holidays

January 2, 2020

The past two weeks holiday season has seen a series of global trade policy events and data-points that are relevant for the global supply chain operators as 2020 gets underway. Brexit proceeds apace with the U.K. having passed the Withdrawal Agreement Bill, though the EU has already signalled ... Read more →

North Korea Sanctions Normalization Sought, Could Help Chinese Apparel Buyers

December 19, 2019

The governments of China and Russia are pushing for a relaxation of United Nations sanctions against North Korea in order to encourage a restart of the so-called “six party” talks including the U.S. China holds the main economic relationship with the DPRK. Exports to North Korea from China alr... Read more →

Korean Denuclearization Being Dragged Into The Trade War

August 6, 2019

The U.S-China trade war is spreading to other geopolitical situations with statements by China’s Ambassador to the UN, Zhang Jun, suggesting its “hard to imagine” that the U.S. can expect cooperation from China in regards to disarming North Korea while also applying additional tariffs on Chine... Read more →

Kim May Find Future Will “Entirely Depend” On Chinese Trade, Not U.S. Attitudes

April 27, 2019

Tensions between North Korea and the U.S. are worsening after Chairman Kim Jong-un stated relations have “reached a critical point” due to “bad faith” actions taken by the U.S. at a recent summit, while the future of relations “entirely depend” on the U.S. In reality it’s been economic pressur... Read more →

North Korea Normalization Dims As China’s $2 Billion Trade Surplus Persists

March 25, 2019

Prospects for a normalization North Korea’s relations with the rest of the world and removal of trade sanctions may have dimmed. North Korea has ended liaison office operations with South Korea after the U.S. sanctioned two Chinese logistics firms for bypassing trade restrictions. That may ov... Read more →

North Korea Trade Pressure Delivered, Trump-Kim Summit Will Show Effectiveness

February 25, 2019

President Donald Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un will hold meetings from Feb. 27 to determine the way ahead for normalizing relations. Economic pressure on North Korea can be seen in its bilateral trade with the rest of the world which fell 35.9% year over year in the 12 months to Oct. 30 compa... Read more →

2019 Outlook – Black Swans: Trade War May Be The Least Of Our Worries

January 8, 2019

The integration of global supply chains leaves them vulnerable to “black swan” – low likelihood, high impact – events. The U.S.-China relationship may worsen should North Korea back away from denuclearization. America may well blame China, jeopardizing a trade deal even though China’s trade wi... Read more →

G20 Watch: The Xi-Trump Meet Is Only One of Six Major Issues to Watch

November 28, 2018

The G20 Summit could feature development in six areas relating to global trade. (1) There may be no formal statement from the group regarding trade protectionism, even though global trade growth has slowed to 2.3% year over year in September. (2) The long-awaited meeting between President Xi J... Read more →

Supply Chain Research

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