US ports see record levels of activities due to worries of a global trade war

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. The Interview. The best conversations from across the BBC. Today we are spending trivians on war and peanuts on peace. With the people shaping our world. You're making decisions that will have long-term consequences for the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Wind power in the United States has been subsidised for 33 years. Solar for 25 years. That's enough! The Interview from the BBC World Service. Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

1:00the program. We're also going to be talking about cryptocurrencies, what's happening there. It's been a busy week for them. Solar power in Madagascar and heat waves in Argentina. And we're looking at the issue of maternity leave. It's been granted to female tennis players, professional female tennis players. Why has it taken so long? And is it time that other sports did begin to catch up on those policies? As always, we're joined by two guests from opposite sides of the world in lahore we have pakistan memal safra's journalist and analyst who is up early in the morning for us how's your week been memal it's been a pretty busy week for the economy lots of seesawing of policies what's your week been like good morning rahul yes it's quite early here and yes it's been a hectic week also because of ramzan so i'm up early yes due to that as well and politically a lot of things have been happening.

1:58Then, of course, you know, the news was that, you know, Trump thanked Pakistan for catching terrorists. So there's that. There was a lot of talk about that. And then a possible travel ban on Pakistan, the US. So, yes, a lot is happening over here. A lot is happening. We'll pick up on the travel ban a little bit later in the program. in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Firmin Coop, Environment and Climate Reporter. We're going to talk a little bit more about this in the programme as well. But do you have power, Firmin, is the first question for you. Hi, yes, thanks for asking me to be here. Yes, I have power.

2:39It's been a busy week here as well. We are still in the middle of a big heat wave. It's 10pm at night here and it's 35 Celsius degrees, so quite hot still. and we've been like that for three days and around half a million people without power in the city of Buenos Aires. So it's been quite difficult working over the last couple of days. We're going to have a further conversation about that as well. But this week here on World Services, on the World Services business programmes, we've been following the Trump administration's changing policies on tariffs and it has been quite a journey, hasn't it?

3:17There were tariffs placed on Mexico and Canada then some were withdrawn and then more tariffs were being put in place across the world. And it seems to be spreading in the last few minutes. China's Commerce Ministry have said they will impose additional tariffs on some Canadian goods, including rapeseed oil, 100 % tariffs on there, some tariffs on pork and aquatic products as well. If we get more information on that, we will, of course, bring it to you. But let us remind ourselves of what's been happening with Donald Trump and tariffs this week. If you don't make your product in America, however, under the Trump administration, you will pay a tariff, and in some cases, a rather large one.

3:56Let's be clear. If Trump is imposing tariffs, we're ready. We are ready with$155 billion worth of tariffs. Donald Trump has doubled down on his threat of tariffs, saying that time ran out to reach a deal. No room left for Mexico or for Canada. No, the tariffs, you know, they're all set. We will stand up for Canadians every single second of every single day. US stock markets, not surprisingly, off the back of the announcement from the White House that these tariffs would be going ahead, responded pretty badly. This is, in soccer terms, it's a known goal, but if you want it in American parlance, it's a self-inflicted wound.

4:39It's his second climb down in as many days. Over the imposition of trade tariffs, first, Donald Trump rode back in relation to Mexico. And in the last couple of hours, Canada has also won a reprieve on goods covered in a trade agreement with the US. Mr. Trump says the recent dramatic falls in financial markets, crashing to their lowest level since November last year, has nothing to do with his change of heart. No, nothing to do with the market. I'm not even looking at the market, because long term, the United States will be very strong with what's happening here. Now, these are countries and companies, foreign companies, that have been ripping us off and no president did anything about it until I came along.

5:19And then I did a lot about it. Let's get reaction from Argentina and Pakistan to the week. Memal, firstly, with you, are there concerns in Pakistan that these tariffs could be put on some Pakistani products, particularly after April the 2nd, when Donald Trump has said, look, if you put tariffs on the US, we're going to put tariffs on you? Well, you know, so far our business community is hopeful that there won't be any tariffs on us. In fact, some of them are actually saying that, you know, tariffs on other countries may actually benefit Pakistan. There was a report by AKD Securities which basically said that, you know, it will have a favorable impact on Pakistan's economy due to the country's import-driven economic structure.

6:08What about Argentina? Because Javier Malay, Thurman and Donald Trump have a pretty good relationship. So does Argentina look at this in a similar vein as Pakistan seems to be? Yeah, you're very right. They are quite friendly with each other, but that friendship hasn't given any benefits to Argentina so far. For example, the steel industry, which is quite big here and exports quite a lot to the US, will be paying tariffs from now on. The main expectation from Millet that we have seen is a potential free trade agreement between Argentina and the US. That's openly being mentioned as a possibility both by Millet and Trump.

6:49But getting there will probably take a lot of time and we'll see if that actually ends up being a reality. For now, Argentinians will start paying tariffs whenever they want to express something to the US and that's going to be the reality from now on. Yeah, that could be the reality for many countries, couldn't it? We wanted to get the thoughts of somebody who knows Donald Trump about the last week because it has been turbulent. So I've been speaking to Thomas Philipson, a former chair of Donald Trump's Council of Economic Advisers, during his first term. Europe is one issue and then the border countries of Canada and Mexico is a different issue.

7:28The border countries, the issue is really a drug war as opposed to a trade war. The president is really concerned about, you know, 100 ,000 people a year dying of drug overdoses in the U.S. That supply coming in mostly from the southern border and Mexico, but also from the northern border as well. But it's very little from the northern border, isn't it? Yeah, it's very little compared to the southern border. That's true. But he wants to take strong action on not only the drug trade, but also illegals coming in from the northern border, which I agree the southern border is the biggest problem. But it's not as much a trade issue war as opposed to a drug war, in my opinion.

8:09And with Europe, I think it's much more a reciprocity issue, which you'll see April 2nd. They are tariffing us a lot more than we are doing to them. So essentially, the U.S. is the victim, not the criminal when it comes to tariffs. And his goal is to level that playing field. That is the goal. But some would say this week, the flip-flopping of policies was an indication that actually, Donald Trump is watching the markets very closely. And when they react badly, he changes policy. I think it's more what he's getting, which is not clear from the public information that's coming out, I think. What is he getting or not for extending, you know, a month from this industry or extending a month from that country, essentially, is what he's getting in return.

8:57He's obviously using this as a negotiation tool to get what he wants, to have leverage in negotiations. But returning to the question of the markets, you have worked closely with him. He does follow the markets, doesn't he? So when he says, oh, I'm not looking at them at all, do you believe that? No, I mean, he obviously knows what's going on in the market, but I also think it doesn't allow that to shape his long run goals of his policies, which are very, very clear. He wants to stop the influx of illegal immigrants, not the influx of legal immigrants. He has a lot of policies to try to stimulate job creation by legal immigrants through this gold visa, etc.

9:38But it's hard for businesses. We've spoken to many businesses this week, both in the US and many in Mexico as well, who say, look, it's really difficult to plan policies when we don't know what the tariff situation is going to be. Yeah, I view that as a short-run phenomenon, that there's uncertainty in the tariff levels. It's clearly an increased uncertainty in the tariff levels since Trump came into power. I don't think that's a long-run phenomenon. I think that's a short-run phenomenon until these negotiations settle, and ultimately until he gets what he wants, essentially. What if he doesn't get what he wants?

10:17The future will determine what happens then, but I think it's pretty clear that he's very aggressive if he doesn't get what he wants. But the reciprocity issue, I think, is very, very important. That's coming out April 2nd, because all these countries complaining on tariffs, they can get free trade with the U.S. by setting a zero tariff. But they're not willing to do that, apparently. Yep. Interesting to hear the thoughts of somebody who knows Donald Trump well, Thomas Phillipson there. Thurman, do you think a lot of countries in Latin America worry when they see what's happening with Mexico, particularly on the issue of migration, that this is something that could happen to them as well?

10:54Yeah, definitely. The news from the U.S. has been coming quite strongly over the last couple of weeks. And even since Trump took office, the relationship with the U.S. and other Latin American countries is quite strong. We do see some competition with China. That's something that has been going on for a while. But there's concern overall, I think, with most political leaders in the region about what's happening in the U.S. and the repercussions of that in trade, but also with migration, economics and politics overall. I mean, the U.S. hasn't really paid a lot of attention to Latin America, I would say, over the years, but that could easily change now with Trump.

11:38We'll see. And you mentioned this at the start of the program, Memal, when we're talking about movement of people, which is important to economies. There has been some reporting, hasn't there, of Donald Trump maybe putting in a travel ban again, like you did in the first time. And with Pakistan being on that list, that must be an issue of concern. It is, Rahul. I mean, Reuters first reported this. There were two names, Pakistan and Afghanistan, that, you know, there could be a potential travel ban on these two countries. Then New York Times has also reported on this just recently. And basically, Pakistan could either be, according to that report, that it could either be on the stricter red tier or it could be in the orange group of countries whose access would be curtailed but not completely barred.

12:25So, I mean, our officials basically say that they are yet to hear anything officially from the U.S. administration. So they are waiting for that before making any comments on this issue. Yeah, Willis, he's probably quite wise. A lot of countries, I think, Mexico did that, said they weren't going to say very much. the tariffs got removed from there. So maybe a good policy in dealing with this uncertain times. Well, we've been hearing from a lot of businesses on the programme this week saying it's difficult to plan with this uncertainty. But for some, the possibility of tariffs coming in can be good.

13:03America's ports have been busy as companies try and stockpile products to try and avoid any tariffs that the Trump administration might impose. I've been speaking to Noel Hasegeber, the Chief Operating Officer of Long Beach Port, which in January this year was the busiest in the U.S. The last eight months, Raul, we've seen record levels of container activity that we've never seen. In fact, 2024 was a record year for us, and that string continued into 2025. January 2025 for us was our busiest January ever. And as you know, January normally port activity dips because of the strong holiday season and the run-up to Lunar New Year.

13:43But January turned out to be one of our strongest on record. And that's in large part because of strong consumer demand that started to taper at the beginning of this year, but remained pretty strong. And a lot of front-loading by shippers trying to get ahead of tariffs. That was the question I was going to come to, that front-loading of shipping because of tariffs. Is that still continuing at the moment? Well, so far, when you look at our container movements, the fact that January was one of our strongest months on record, that's a pretty good signal that front loading continues. When you say that front loading is still busy, how busy is it?

14:19Could you give us some numbers? How much busier were you this January than you were last January? So in January of 2025, our container volumes were 41.4 % ahead of January 2024. So we were 41.4 % for the month of January, year over year. There are many businesses that are struggling. We've been speaking to lots of them because of the flip-flopping on tariffs. You're not one of them. But once we have a policy, a final policy in place, maybe April the 2nd is that day, are you expecting to see business slow down rapidly? I think the uncertainty is driving a lot of what I would call overreaction, right?

14:59Everyone is trying to read the tea leaves and they're trying to come up with strategies to best position their businesses, right, for potential tariffs. And I think what's important here is that we recognize that we're probably not going to get uncertainty anytime soon until at least there is a clear understanding of what the path forward is going to look like, right? So overreacting is not going to help. And I think we all need to just take a pause and do our part to make sure that the global supply chain continues with fluidity. It's not overreaction, though, is it? If you're a business and you think there's going to be tariffs on your products, get them in early before the tariffs come into place.

15:40That's good common business sense, isn't it? What I mean by saying let's not overreact is let's make sure that we consider capacity throughout the supply chain so that we don't inadvertently create some of those bottlenecks. There are these reports, aren't there, that there may be a decision by the Trump administration to impose higher port fees on Chinese built vessels. Could that affect your port? Any type of additional fee or additional cost will have a tendency to impact the flow of cargo. You have to keep in mind that cargo follows a path of least resistance. It doesn't matter what the source of disruption is.

16:25Anytime there's an impact to the flow of goods, you're going to see that cascading effect. It's important to also understand that port activity is a pretty good barometer of trade trends and economic activity. Goods movement is literally the economy in motion. And anything, whether it's a supply chain crisis induced by a pandemic or the threat of new tariffs, anything that disrupts goods movement will inevitably impact economic trends and trade trends and trade activity. No, I'll have to give it about that port being extremely busy as people try and bring in products quickly before tariffs are put in place.

17:01Let's just go back to where we started. China announced tariffs on some Canadian agricultural and food products on Saturday. That was in response to Canada placing import levels on Chinese electric vehicles and steel and aluminium products. I'm sure there'll be a lot more talk about tariffs when we are back on Monday. Right. Let us go back to Argentina. Alerta maxima, maximum alert. That's one of the headlines on Wednesday when a massive blackout affected parts of Buenos Aires amid sweltering temperatures. The power cuts left 600 ,000 users without electricity in the greater Buenos Aires area.

17:43Furman, you told us how hot it was. What was it exactly that caused these power cuts on Wednesday? Well, there's the short answer and the long answer to that. Let me start with the long one. Let's get a medium one. Yeah, definitely. So, Argentina hasn't really been spending money on upgrading its electricity grids for decades now, two or three decades now. Mainly, the economic crisis doesn't allow the country to spend as much as it should on the grids. And at the same time, people in the Buenos Aires area really don't pay that much for energy bills. It's quite, quite low compared to other countries in the world.

18:24And that basically leads to companies not spending as much as they should to upgrade the grid. And that leads to blackouts. It's been quite something quite frequent, to be honest. I mean, I've lived in Buenos Aires my entire life and I always have to deal with blackouts here. but with the heat waves getting more severe now because of the climate crisis for example now we are on day three of a heat wave that definitely doesn't help. I mean the fact that we have three days in a row with 40 Celsius degrees that's definitely a new normal now because of the climate crisis and that puts a lot of pressure on the grid.

19:07Javier Millet has wanted to say he's going to tackle many of Argentina's problems, inflation, debt. So the electricity problems that you have eloquently described there that you face for some time, what are his plans for that? Well, that's a good question. So it's definitely not on the list of priorities for Millet. Millet is mainly interested on the potential of exports of the energy sector in Argentina. Argentina has the second largest reservoir of shale oil and shale gas in the south of the country, the first one being the U.S. There is a lot of talk of the possibility of increasing exports and getting more revenue from there.

19:48But that's mainly for exports. That doesn't really drive a solution for the crisis on a local level, which will require lots of investment, mainly from the state. That's the key of the problem. Millet doesn't want to raise anything that will increase the expenditure from the state, as people may have seen on the news. I mean, Millet is completely against the state having a strong role on anything. That includes the energy sector. He relies completely on the private sector to do everything. But the private sector isn't coming in with investments. We are not seeing foreign investments from the US or Europe or China even coming in to actually invest on upgrading the grid.

20:33So it's kind of a difficult spot because if the state is not spending money and the private sector is not coming in, who will actually do that? That is a good question that you asked there, Firmin. Memal, I was chatting to some relatives of mine in Mumbai where they're expecting the beginnings of a heat wave temperature is beginning to creep up. Is that the same in Lahore? Are you nice and cool? You're a bit more like Delhi temperatures than Mumbai temperatures. Karachi probably more like Mumbai. Yes, it's more like Delhi temperature. And at the moment, thankfully, there's no heat wave. In fact, we've had some rain over the past few days, so the temperature has come down.

21:16But unfortunately, Rahul, the thing is that Pakistan is facing a shortfall of rain. So according to the Med Department, rainfall was 40 % lower than normal across Pakistan from September 1st last year till January 15th this year. and Sindh provinces on the brink of a severe water crisis, according to the province's irrigation department, that basically warned that, you know, Mangla and Terpila dams are expected to run completely dry in the coming days. And, of course... There we go. Memal was in full flow, but we lost her there. Firmin, oh, back you come. Drinking water, water supply, sorry. There we go.

21:58Sorry. No, no, don't worry. So this basically poses a threat to, you know, agricultural production and drinking water supplies across the region. It's like there's a drought-like situation. We keep losing you, Memal, but you keep coming back, fortunately. But we got the full gist of what you were saying. We've got about a minute for this now. What Memal's talking about there is something you look at very closely and those climatic changes wherever we are in the world, whatever season we're in, they seem to be growing. Yes, definitely. The impacts of the climate crisis keep on growing. And the fact that we are now on a difficult spot, geopolitically speaking, with Trump in office and other extreme right governments in other places of the world that deny the climate crisis, that doesn't help.

22:46And we are entering into a critical year. Governments have to file new climate plans now in 2025. so it will be an interesting point to look at those plans and what they are pledging. It certainly will, Furman. It's an issue we're going to come back to both if you want a little bit in the second half of the programme because we know that there have been these cuts to USA and we just want to get a sense from Argentina and Pakistan if that is beginning to have any impact at all. But we're going to be back with the second half of Business Matters after we bring you the very latest news.

23:38The Interview. The best conversations from across the BBC. Today we are spending trivians on war and peanuts on peace. With the people shaping our world. You're making decisions that will have long-term consequences for the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Wind power in the United States has been subsidised for 33 years. Solar for 25 years. That's enough! The interview from the BBC World Service. Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

24:15Welcome back to Business Matters here on the BBC World Service with me, Rahul Tandon. We've got Mamal there in Lahore in Pakistan. We've got Furman in Buenos Aires in Argentina. A question to both of you. Furman, if you want to go first this time. We've been talking a lot about the sort of global uncertainty in the world. you know, Trump's flip-flopping policies, everybody feeling a little bit nervous. But, you know, we spend a lot of time focusing on the US because it's the world's biggest economy in Argentina. Is there a sense of that, that the global economy seems to be heading towards a difficult time?

24:52Yes, I would think so. I mean, the local economy is a big mess and has been like that for a long time. And the fact that the world has been flip-flopping, as you well said, doesn't really help. And Argentina, as we may talk about this later, is actually renegotiating now alone with the IMF and the fact that we see so many back and forwards in the US itself and in other parts of the world, that doesn't really help. And is that a similar feeling in Pakistan? They've been challenging economic times for the country. We'll talk about that in a minute. But this wider global uncertainty, Does that send a few shivers down the Pakistani economy, Memal?

25:35Well, you know, Rahul, I mean, finally Pakistan's economy is stable now. We have achieved stability and, you know, we are now aiming for growth. So, of course, such shifts do put people, you know, it does worry people in the country that, you know, after a long time we've had some economic stability. So we hope that, you know, it doesn't go anywhere. We've had a bit of a weather theme, haven't we, on the program with Firmin talking about those heat waves in Buenos Aires. So let's take the temperature of these two economies that have been struggling. You're saying it's stable now. What's given that stability and what signs do you see of that on a daily basis, Mehmal?

26:17Are you seeing prices not going up as quickly as they used to? Are they even beginning to fall? We've been talking on this show for many years now. You know, we've discussed, you know, being on the verge of default and everything else. And then, of course, you know, we were renegotiating a loan. I mean, I just talked about IMF and we are in an IMF program. So, you know, we negotiated an IMF program and that's why there is some stability. Also, the government has completed its one year. and there are signs yes some prices have you know i'm in dollar against the rupee the currency is stable there's that then of course stock market is doing well of course food inflation is something that you know people may hear a lot of things with that's uh getting better and but of course there are prices like of um electricity uh they're still high so it it's i mean there's stability but there's going to be some time before we move towards growth, is what a lot of financial experts say.

27:24And let's take a look at the Argentinian economy. When you talked there about that IMF loan, there was a lot of global attention, wasn't there, on Javier Millet when he came to power, because he was so different to maybe what we've seen for some time. How successful has he been? I mean, the fact that he's going for an IMF loan, is that slightly contradictory for

27:50well uh yeah can you hear me now yeah we can indeed we can yeah great fantastic thank you i just lost you for a minute uh yeah so we reached uh the one year anniversary of milay a few months ago and the inflation is quite it's much lower uh argentina used to have a almost 300 % inflation per year. Now we are at 100. The numbers of the fiscal deficit are definitely much better. However, Argentina became a much more expensive country than before. The number of tourists that are coming into the country are much lower because they actually say Argentina has become more expensive. Life here is definitely much more expensive since Mila took office.