Bridges to Breakthroughs: How free trade can survive in a protectionist world

Crisis? What crisis?

Even if the future is murky, nobody likes a Cassandra. Many in the industry are argue that we have yet to reach a point we start tearing our hair out over protectionism.

“DFW hasn’t yet seen a decline in airfreight since Brexit, the demise of the TPP and the increased anti-trade rhetoric from the US administration,” said John Ackermann, executive vice president of Global Strategy and Development at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW). “In fact, the opposite has been true recently. We continue to see significant year over year increases in our cargo volumes, and our freighter operators have been adding capacity to the DFW market.”

DFW has plenty to lose if Trump gets his wall, but Ackermann is encouraged by the President’s recent willingness to reconsider important tenets of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). “Texas is the number-one exporting state in the country. If something were to happen it would reduce our export viability to the rest of the world. That would be bad for Texas, and what’s bad for Texas is generally bad for DFW.”

“It’s too early to comment on the effects of the tabling of the TPP and Trump’s anti-NAFTA rhetoric,” Katherine Kaczynska, director of corporate communications at IATA told Air Cargo World. Regarding Brexit, Kaczynska warned of, “significant potential regulatory impacts, which will need to be agreed by the E.U. and the U.K.”

Across the Atlantic, others share Kaczynska’s muted concern. A DHL survey of more than 4,000 SMEs found that only 25 percent of respondents considered their companies immune to the impacts of the vote. But only 8.8 percent of respondents anticipated, “a negative impact on my business.” The majority weren’t sure how the situation would play out.

“We have never seen so much written or discussed that is pure speculation, hence, our reticence to add to this,” Robert Keen, director general of the British International Freight Association wrote in an email. Instead, Keen pointed to his organizations efforts to promote a “frictionless border,” with local customs authorities.