Prediction Didn’t hold up
Petersen: U.S. trade tariffs will decrease American manufacturing
“What we've seen over the last few weeks is it's gonna decrease American manufacturing.”
Opinion
Petersen: Chinese cars are far ahead of Western, Japanese, and Korean vehicles
“They're so fricking good. They're so far ahead of anything that the West or even Japan and Korea are making”
Opinion
Petersen: Flexport Offers Better Fulfillment Proposition Than Amazon Logistics
“So if you want to say we compete with Amazon, I think we're a strictly better proposition other than the fact that we don't own amazon.com and have all the demand that that drives.”
Opinion
Petersen: Amazon does not treat sellers as tier-one customers
“Amazon does not treat the seller on their platform as a tier one customer. Their job is to help the customer, the consumer at the end of the day.”
Insight
Petersen: Component Tariffs Hurt US Manufacturers Producing for Export
“Well, you have to import the goods and pay duties on the components, and then, ah, your product is now more expensive to produce, and if you instead produce that, those goods in Mexico that didn't have the tariffs on Chinese goods, you wouldn't, your cost woul…”
Opinion
Petersen: Fast-Changing Tariff Policy Paralyzes Corporate Reshoring Plans
“The result is we're not giving the market enough clarity of what the tariffs will be when, and so, if you did want to move back to the U.S., you're just kind of paralyzed right now, because the environment's changing so fast.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Petersen: Tariff anomaly forced US bicycle maker overseas after ten years
“Bicycles can be imported duty free, but bicycle components cannot.
so they've decided after a decade of manufacturing in the U.S. That they now have to produce overseas because they can import the finished goods and not pay duty, but if they import the compon…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Petersen: A dozen US manufacturers recently decided to stop domestic production
“I've seen a dozen examples in the last few months of companies that are, were producing in the U.S. And decided to stop.”
Disclosure
Petersen: Flexport sees zero manufacturing returning to the U.S.
“Not amongst our customers. I haven't seen any flow into the U.S., but I'm seeing it There's a ton of movement out of China.”
Insight
Petersen: China is now the highest-quality manufacturer, not cheap labor
“You're not in China anymore for cheap labor. Like, you're there because they're the best at manufacturing things. Which is a really interesting story over the last 20 years that they became the highest quality manufacturer. Not just the, not, they're not the c…”
Assertion Partly supported
Petersen: Southeast Asian manufacturing expansion is mostly run by Chinese firms
“It's mostly Chinese manufacturers. So talk about that. This is a very important point. Yeah, it's mostly Chinese companies setting up setting up an entity in the country, hiring many cases actually getting the workers that have to learn Chinese, Vietnamese wor…”
Assertion Supported
Petersen: Importers Classify Products As Computers to Evade 30% Tariffs
“Computers are exempted right now. There's a computer and everything, so everybody in the world is trying to claim that this is actually a computer. It's not a watch, it's a computer, and then you get, you know, how do you get I've seen a lot of different peopl…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Petersen: US apparel brands used Mexico and Canada for de minimis
“What a lot of people don't realize is a huge percentage of the world's apparel, of the American apparel brands had set up fulfillment in Mexico and Canada. To do the same thing, only they would do ocean freight from wherever the goods are made, deliver to Mexi…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Petersen: Ending de minimis is creating fulfillment jobs in the US
“And the immediate result is a huge surge of needing to put fulfillment, wanting to put fulfillment back in the United States. There's no reason to fulfill from Tijuana. It's pretty far. You're shipping to New York from Tijuana. You're better off having a fulfi…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Petersen: Shein and Temu will survive end of de minimis exemption
“Well, they're very big global companies first off, so yes. And they're already finding ways, you know, they have to pay duties, but they're just back to being a level playing field, so I think they're, you're gonna see them, one, produce in other countries, an…”
Opinion
Petersen: Ending de minimis benefits Amazon and Walmart against cross-border competitors
“For the de minimis thing in particular, I think Amazon's better off with de minimis not existing. Because de minimis is shipping direct from China to the U.S. Consumer. It skips their fulfillment network. Which is where they put all the capex and huge competit…”
Insight
Petersen: Human warehouse workers set a very high bar for robots
“Humans are just so dexterous and intelligent and not that expensive that, like, you know, it's a very high bar to clear for these robots because humans are really good at the job.”
Prediction Held up
Petersen: Warehouse robots most likely will not be humanoid
“Humanoid actually doesn't solve a lot of problems because you don't get more density out of your warehouse. You want real estate density. You want to be able to stack the goods all the way to the ceiling, jam them in. So it's more, the form factor is not going…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Petersen: Factory plans paused as machine costs rise 20-50% under tariffs
“Having talked to a bunch of companies that are in active, active planning mode on building factories, they've actually paused that right now because all of a sudden the machines that they have to buy are going to cost 20 to 50% more depending on where they're …”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Petersen: Tech industry will be prime target for foreign tariff retaliation
“And the tech industry will be the natural place to target. It's our best industry, our best companies. And if you wanted to retaliate against America, that would be the place to hit.”
Prediction Held up
Petersen: Cabinet secretary indicated administration will negotiate deals on tariffs
“I believe there will be deals cut. I don't know if in time to pause the tariffs altogether, but and I believe that because a cabinet secretary told me that there would be a pause, a negotiation, I should say, not a pause, but he said two weeks ago that this wa…”
Prediction Partly held up
Petersen: 70% chance trade deals get negotiated, China tariffs probably stick
“I give it like a 70% confidence level that they negotiate some deals. I think the China tariffs probably stick.”
Disclosure
Petersen: Flexport e-commerce customers have already raised consumer prices 5-10%
“Merchants on e-com, the ones that we track of our customers have raised prices of five to 10% already. To the consumer.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Petersen: April 17 fees on Chinese-made ships will disrupt ocean freight
“We have on April 17th, no one's talking about it right now, but they're in 10 days, they're going to impose fees on ships made in China when they make a port call in the US. It's going to totally rearrange the shipping networks and make ocean freight incredibl…”
Ryan Petersen