#1 Mexico Bares Agricultural Teeth Before NAFTA Talks (Mar 17) The most read research in March, like the most read report in February, focussed on Mexico rather than America’s position on NAFTA. We looked at comments from Mexico’s Agriculture Secretary that the country would start to look for alternatives to the U.S., identified just what they might be and what it would mean for U.S. farmers.

#2 39% of U.S. Trade is Up for Review as Trump Nears Executive Order (Mar 21) Our preview of the trade-deal reviewing EO identified NAFTA, KORUS (with South Korea) and the FTAs with Israel and Colombia as being the most likely to need renegotiation.

#3 China Doesn’t Want a U.S. Trade War – It Has Too Much Else To Do (Mar 15) Premier Li of China ended the NPC with a call to avoid a trade war with the U.S., our analysis shows China probably needs to be more worried about Europe in terms of scale and growth.

#4 Merkel-Trump Meeting Could Make Dark Clouds Disappear (Mar 9) Probably the most important state meeting of the month was the Trump-Merkel summit, which had been preceded by critical commentary from the U.S. side. Our deep-dive into trade-flows showed the two countries have much in common.

#5 Did Wilbur Ross Punt NAFTA 2.0 Into 2018? (Mar 8) The formal start of NAFTA negotiations was eagerly awaited throughout the month, though comments from Secretary Ross suggested they may not be completed until 2018. We flagged the risk that slow trilateral talks run the risk of the President losing patience and acting unilaterally.

#6 Did Trump’s Speech Support BAT? It May Slow New Trade Deals (Mar 1) The President’s speech to Congress raised the prospect that tax reform and trade reform could get tangled up, but with an expanding deficit for January looming patience may have worn thin.

#7 NAFasTA Deal Making? (Mar 13) If Secretary Ross’s comments earlier in the month suggested slow progress on NAFTA, his statement that a TPA trigger could occur within two weeks speeded them up. Timing matters: U.S.-Mexico deficits tend to peak seasonally around June, possibly arriving just as formal talks would start.

#8 Will the Box Club Be Clubbed by the Department of Justice? (Mar 22) Our reading of a surprise investigation by the DoJ into container-liners is that it is driven by concerns held about alliances that the FMC does not share.

#9 Expeditors Loses U.S. NVOCC Share to Danmar, DSV as Competition Hots Up (Mar 13) Each month we analyze the performance of the NVOCCs, with an apparent increase in competition for volumes among the top players leaving Expeditors the loser – or perhaps the winner.

#10 Is Mexico’s Surprise Surplus a Portent of Export Reversal to Come? (Mar 27) February’s trade surplus was the result of higher energy prices, which are uncontrollable, and falling component imports, which suggests manufacturing activity may be falling.

#11 Boeing Wants ExIm But Trade Deal Exposure Matters More (Mar 2) Redundancies at America’s number 1 exporter aren’t for want of shipments, which have been increasing. It does, however, face retaliation threats as the administration seeks new trade deals.

#12 No TTIP v2 – Trump and Merkel Have Other Deals to Handle (Mar 20) An awkward meeting resulted in no fireworks, but equally didn’t move EU-U.S. trade relations forward either. Our analysis of bilateral trade shows it is a border-adjustable tax rather than a renewal of TTIP that may be the next battleground. That and the small matters of Brexit and NAFTA.

#13 Adidas Sourcing Teardown Reveals Shoes From 27 Countries, T-Shirts from 30 (Mar 2) Adidas’s supply chain may be more important to its future success than sales growth, our review of over 500 country-product lines shows.

#14 Will Discipline Hold as Hyundai MM Gets the Money It’s Been Promised? (Mar 6) We’ve been tracking container-liner capacity discipline for several months, and highlighted the risk of Korean government financing resulting in that discipline slipping.

#15 Less WTO, More Wrestling with South Korea Previewed in Trump Trade Tract (Mar 1) We took a deep-dive into U.S.-South Korea trade relations to see where a renegotiation of KORUS might go (spoiler: it’s not just mobile phones).

#16 Maersk Yet to Announce HamSu Financials, Regulatory Hurdles Remain High (Mar 15) Maersk’s acquisition took a couple of procedural steps forward during March, but still faces significant hurdles, especially in Latin America.

#17 NAFTAmnesty? Trump Draft May Avoid New Deficits Rather Than Cure Old Ones (Mar 30) We used an analysis of over 1,000 export lines from Mexico to the U.S. in January to put proposed NAFTA “snapback” terms in context.

#18 Lighthizer Wants to Promote Ags Exports, May Be Forced to Play Defense (Mar 15) Our investigation of the top 60 U.S. agricultural exports to its top 20 partners highlighted the need for the U.S. to think more about defence than offence for agriculture in trade talks.

#19 Will Mnuchin Use the G20 As a Currency Manipulation Campaign Kick-off? (Mar 14) The G20 finance meeting isn’t normally about global trade – we believed it would become so. In the end it resulted in the G20 removing its stated commitment to resisting protectionism in all forms.

#20 Trump Rush Effect Wanes in February as U.S. Shipments Slow (Mar 7) Each month we use shipment data to get a near 4-week head start on official trade statistics. We spotted falling imports for February.

#21 Could Maersk’s Concessions for Hamburg Sud Include Brazil? (Mar 22) We analyzed Maersk and Hamburg Sud’s route market shares to determine where the European Commission commitments they have made may lie.

#22 5 Year High For U.S. Deficit Adds Impetus But Can’t Accelerate New Trade Deals (Mar 7) The U.S. trade deficit for January was a big one because of goods. Given the Trump administration’s focus on deficits we took a look at progress on services too.

#23 The Big Get Bigger as U.S. Carrier Share Consolidates Further in February (Mar 9) We added an analysis of 600 carrier-country pairs to our monthly deep-dive into the U.S.-inbound shipping market to reveal the importance of alliances.

#24 China May Not Grab TPP in Chile, But It Does Need to Address NAFTA 2.0 (Mar 14) A preview of the Pacific Alliance meeting in Chile looked at China’s positioning vs. the attendees’ in terms of trade deal membership potential.

#25 South Korean Trade Dispute with China Likely to Remain Low Key (Mar 7) As South Korea threatened China with a WTO reference we analyzed the top 200 exports in each direction and found that the close integration of electronics supply chains makes a full trade war unlikely.

These articles were first published on Panjiva Research, and highlighted in the Panjiva Global Trade Daily. To learn more email sales@panjiva.com.

#1 Trump, Trudeau and Peña Nieto’s Top 50 NAFTA Pain Points (Feb 2) As Mexico kicked off its NAFTA consultation, we took a look at the top 50 exports of each NAFTA member with the others.

#2 Has Hanjin’s Demise Helped the Shipping Industry? (Feb 17) The final bankruptcy notice for Hanjin Shipping led us to address the impact on rates, and our concerns about new capacity being built.

#3 Mexico and Canada Lack Leverage for Trilateral Trump Talks (Feb 22) Mexico and Canada’s foreign ministers said they want a trilateral discussion on NAFTA. We found that outside of aerospace and agriculture they have little joint leverage to force it.

#4 Has Hyundai MM Already Lost the Battle for Walmart’s Custom? (Feb 15) Our analysis of Wal-Mart’s shipping shows that it was MSC, rather than Hyundai MM that replaced Hanjin Shipping.

#5 33 Ways U.S. Farmers Can Help Abe Beat Trump (Feb 6) Ahead of Prime Minister Abe’s trip to the U.S. an analysis of the top 200 export lines each way showed agriculture is where Japan may have the most leverage in trade negotiations.

#6 Trump’s Deficit Definition Definitely Of Limited Use, Shows Job Risks (Feb 20) The U.S. may redefine its headline deficit figure, but an investigation of other countries’ re-exports show they could too.

#7 Wooden Can Kicked Down the Road, for NAFTA? (Feb 2) A decision to delay a tariff investigation into Canadian exports by the U.S. may have been delayed to include it in broader NAFTA talks.

#8 Trump Waves Currency Saber as Japan Deal Opener (Feb 1) Two weeks before meeting with Prime Minister Abe, President Trump directly accused Japan of manipulating its currency.

#9 Awaiting the $45 billion Tweet from @realdonaldtrump (Feb 6) Our preview of the U.S. full December trade deficit highlighted the rapid expansion of the goods deficit to its highest since March 2015.

#10 Mnuchin’s Currency Manipulation Net May Be Cast Wider Than Before (Feb 23) After the Treasury Secretary’s comments on assessing current manipulation, our analysis showed 10 countries could be caught, up from seven previously.

#11 Freeland Takes Hawkish Stance, Canada Could Squeeze U.S. Tech (Feb 9) Canada’s main areas of leverage in trade talks with the U.S. will likely focus on telecoms equipment, PCs and pharma once talks start.

#12 Maersk’s Miss Doesn’t Demonstrate Disaster, Outlook Optimistic (Feb 8) Maersk’s disappointing results were mostly due to the oil business that it’s selling. It’s upbeat commentary has been seen across the sector.

#13 Being Small But Simply Formed Makes Messina Attractive to MSC (Feb 15) Consolidation in shipping doesn’t just mean mega-deals, with MSC following a bolt-on approach.

#14 MSC’s Remarkable Market Share Bounce Leads Industry Consolidation (Feb 9) Our monthly market share mapping of U.S.-bound carrier volumes found being big is no block to growth.

#15 EU Approval for Maersk’s HamSu Bid May Hinge on Brazil (Feb 21) Maersk’s purchase of Hamburg Sud could take a year to complete, and faces significant regulatory hurdles.

#16 Hapag Lloyd Beats The Street, Flags Need for Discipline (Feb 28) Hapag Lloyd did better than Maersk in beating analyst estimates, but raised concerns about new capacity investment in its outlook.

#17 Tweaks Not Tariffs From Trudeau-Trump Trade Meeting (Feb 14) The first meeting between the Canadian and U.S. leaders didn’t have the expected fireworks.

#18 Obama-Trump Bridge Trade Figures Likely to Expand (Feb 24) Our preview of the February trade figures highlighted the risk of an acceleration in imports and the deficit – we were right.

#19 Did Abe’s Investment Sword Counter Trump’s Currency Sabre? (Feb 13) Trump’s first meeting with Abe was as lacking in fireworks as his meeting with Abe.

#20 Trump Not the Only Enemy For China as Remedies Rise (Feb 17)  The Chinese government is starting to take a more hawkish stance on trade.

These articles were first published on Panjiva Research, and highlighted in the Panjiva Global Trade Daily. To learn more email sales@panjiva.com.

#1 TPP Gone, But NAFTA Matters More (Jan 23) Comparing President Trump’s rejection of TPP to other campaign commitments.

#2 Maersk’s Alibaba Deal Could Access 699,000 Contract Market (Jan 5) Assesses the potential market size for Maersk’s LCL venture

#3 Trump Trips on Toyota Auto Facts, Canada the Actual Loser (Jan 6) The President (then-elect) tweeted against Toyota, we looked at their supply chain across NAFTA.

#4 Is Germany Next on Trump’s Target List? (Jan 31) Peter Navarro cites Germany as a currency manipulator – autos, healthcare and aerospace are exposed.

#5 Is Trump Looking In The Wrong Place? (Jan 10) Our monthly early read of trade activity showed the EU and India as bigger trade threats than China.

#6 Rush to Beat Trump, Early New Year Help Weak China Exports (Jan 13) A review of China’s December export stats suggests exporters did accelerate shipments to beat the inauguration.

#7 Trump’s Trade Hawk Takes Leisurely Flight, Until the Next Deficit (Jan 20) The updated White House website on inauguration day spilled the beans on key policies.

#8 Main Brexit Problem is EU Unity, Not U.K. Desires (Jan 17) We identify which countries need special treatment by the U.K. as it seeks a ‘hard Brexit’.

#9 Are Pharma Imports Reddy for Trump? (Jan 11) The President let rip at the pharma companies, we identified key generic drug suppliers who may be exposed.

#10 6 Shipping Industry Questions to Answer in 2017 (Jan 4) From earnings and deals, to capacity discipline and reefers, here’s what to watch.

#11 Trump’s Day 1 TPP, NAFTA Moves to be Followed by Crowded Kitchen (Jan 17) What to expect from inauguration day and beyond.

#12 Trump Racing? China Phone Exports to U.S. Jumped 40% in November (Jan 9) Chinese mobile phone exports hit a new high in November – why?

#13 Trump Trade Deficit Focus Drawn by 6% Mexican Export Surge (Jan 26) Mexico has another good (or is that bad?) month.

#14 7 Trade Deals to Track in 2017 (Jan 3) All things Trump plus SLA,  RCEP, EGA, WTO and Brexit.

#15 No Deal for Now, High Expectations for Orient Overseas in 2017 (Jan 20) Setting the non-deal in an industry revenue context

#16 Adidas Sees Little Change to Business Under Trump Trade Policy (Jan 18) Because all sportswear makers import from Asia.

#17 25 Months of Chinese PC Pain May Soon Be Over (Jan 10) PC exports fell at their slowest rate in over two years.

#18 Shipping Shuffles Forward, Analysts Hope (Jan 24) Our preview of the forthcoming shipping earnings reports.

#19 Trump and May to Stay Hand-in-Hand-in-Trade (Jan 30) Who’s most exposed to a new U.K./U.S. trade deal?

#20 Ross Needs New Import Tools to Cut Tool Imports (Jan 26) We drill into the details of the rapid growth in U.S. hand- and power-tool imports.

Panjiva Research brings  our unique data and technology to bear on global trade events, issues and concepts. It gives subscribers data-driven insights into politics, economics, logistics and industries in a concise, visual, content-rich format. You’ll also receive a daily email of the most vital information about global trade. To learn more email sales@panjiva.com or talk to a trade specialist at +1-888-902-3511.