News / 2025 will be 'quite a ride' – but logistics will 'again prove its value'

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With tariff-induced transport shifts set to cause supply chain complexity, 2025 “is going to be a year where logistics again proves its value”, according to Niall van de Wouw, chief airfreight officer at Xeneta. 

He was speaking during Flexport’s Air Market Predictions for 2025 webinar, yesterday, when senior regional airfreight manager Benelux for Flexport Milena Milenkovic predicted that 2025 would, “up to a certain point, be a bit of a copy/paste of 2024” – but she noted that production shift may change the dynamic. 

“I have been visiting clients in the past month and have been hearing many of them, in different industries, saying they are actually trying to source more and more locally, especially in Europe,” she explained.  

And Ms Milenkovic warned that the anticipated near-shoring trend could threaten airfreight demand, adding: “I do not foresee a double-digit global growth of volume for 2025.” 

Indeed, US president-elect Donald Trump recently announced plans to ramp-up import tariffs on goods from Mexico, Canada and China in a bid to encourage domestic production.  

The Loadstar reported yesterday, with data from China’s Civil Aviation Authority, that a new trade war with the US would threaten China’s ‘historic’ airfreight boom, but Mr van de Wouw believes “trade will find its way”.  

“There will be entrepreneurs already busy finding ways to minimise the impact of these tariffs,” he said. “The trade shifts don’t stop. So we will see some interesting developments there.” 

Mr van de Wouw explained that as production shifts can’t happen easily or quickly, the shift would instead be seen in transportation and sourcing – adding to supply chain complexity.  

“If westbound becomes an option, then [manufacturers] will go westbound… So maybe people will find ways to get stuff to Taiwan and then from Taiwan to the US, for example. There’s a multitude of options that are probably being looked at to circumvent these things.” 

But he predicted that tariff-avoiding transport shifts would see Vietnam as the main beneficiary.  

“Let me make a dangerous prediction,” he said. “The winner of this will be Vietnam. I think it’s going to be very busy between China and Vietnam, and Vietnam and the United States.  

“We’ve seen it happen. Over the past couple of years, the trade between China and the US declined. But between China and Mexico, it increased, and between China and Vietnam and between Vietnam and the US, it increased.” 

Mr van de Wouw concluded: “I would advise everybody in logistics to take some time off between Christmas and new year. I think it’s going to be quite a ride again. I don’t think there’s going to be hiding.

“People don’t like complexity, but they love solving it. So I think it’s going to be a year where logistics again proves its value.”