Institute for Supply Management
Economic activity in the manufacturing sector expanded in April for the 28th consecutive month, and the overall economy grew for the 71st consecutive month, say the nation’s supply executives in the latest Manufacturing ISM® Report On Business®.
The last of the striking Long Beach and Los Angeles port truck drivers ended their picketing today with employees of Pacific 9 Transportation (Pac 9) returning to work.
Question: What is TPA?
Answer: Trade Promotion Authority—or TPA—is a partnership between Congress and the administration that helps secure the most effective trade agreements possible. It has three main components: a list of congressionally-prescribed negotiating objectives that sets priorities for the administration to follow; robust consultation and transparency requirements that give Congress adequate oversight of negotiations and give the public a full understanding of what an agreement would mean; and a streamlined procedure to vote on a trade agreement if the administration meets its TPA obligations.
The Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities and Accountability Act (TPA) [1] introduced by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) easily passed its first hurdle when both House and Senate committees agreed to give President Obama fast-track authority to negotiate trade deals such as the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP). The bipartisan legislation also allows Congress to vote on the treaties. But the package of bills intended to speed completion of the deal also imposes difficult burdens on its negotiators.[2] The legislation faces difficult fights over amendments on human trafficking, currency and investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS).
The Port of Virginia, one of the nation’s largest, was built to handle high volumes of cargo traffic entering and exiting the U.S.
Some truck drivers who haul goods from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach struck for the second day Tuesday in a protest against four companies they accuse of wage theft.
North American shipment volume and expenditures rose again in March as shipments picked up significantly from the West Coast ports. The U.S. and global economies did not grow as much as expected in the first quarter, but freight movement in the U.S. continues to strengthen.
Import cargo volume at the nation’s major retail container ports is expected to rise 8 percent this month over the same time last year as West Coast ports continue to recover from a backlog of cargo that built up before a tentative new labor agreement was signed, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released today by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.
The International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) announced in a press release on Friday April 3rd, that the majority of their delegates had voted in favor of recommending to their membership the tentative agreement reached on February 20th.
Roughly six weeks after the International Warehouse & Longshore Union and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) reached a tentative five-year labor agreement, following nine months of often acrimonious negotiations that led to myriad supply chain and logistics disruptions, the ILWU said late last week that steps are being taken to make the tentative agreement a done deal.
