News / Tradelanes: Political tension has little effect on traffic between the Americas

Bringer Air Cargo is putting a new freighter destination in Brazil on the map.

The Florida-based cargo airline intends to start flights to the port city of Navegantes in Santa Catarina state this month, said chief commercial officer Roberto Schiavone.

The airport has completed a runway extension to accommodate widebody freighters and upgraded its cargo facilities.

“There’s a lot of industry in the state,” Mr Schiavone said, adding that Bringer could capture demand from three Brazilian states.

Bringer serves a number of Brazilian airports with freighters contracted from several providers, led by LATAM and Atlas Air. It aims to provide alternatives to the main gateways, above all Sao Paulo’s Guarulhos Airport, which has struggled to cope with volume surges.

Bringer’s rates are higher, but shippers save on often long trucking legs from the large gateways, where the cost is inflated by high insurance charges, according to Mr Schiavone.

The company’s strategy, it says, is fuelled by the policies of several Brazilian states seeking to attract international freighter service.

Last month, airfreight volume out of Central and South America was up 2% year on year, according to World ACD, buoyed by a 37% increase to Asia Pacific. Airborne export volume to North America slipped 1% to its second-lowest level in the past four weeks, but this was still more than the region’s airfreight exports to the rest of the world combined.

Airfreight rates to North America were down 8% year on year, to an average of $1.29 per kg, with overall airfreight export pricing down 4% to $1.60.

Comparing the last two weeks of October with the previous two-week window, volumes to North America climbed 1%, while southbound traffic rose 2%. Pricing was flat northbound, but sank 2% in the opposite direction, World ACD figures show.

As usual, US and Latin American passenger carriers upped their flights between the regions with the start of the winter schedule, but this had little impact on rates, Mr Schiavone said.

Nor has he seen repercussions from the US government’s 50% tariff on airfreight imports from Brazil, but maritime volumes have been affected, he said.

The effect appears to have been strongest on coffee, where Brazilian beans have been priced out of the market by the tariffs. US roasters have cancelled orders or, in some cases, diverted them to other markets, like Canada.

Brazil is the largest coffee supplier to the US, accounting for about one-third of US coffee bean consumption. Some growers have warned that US inventory could be tight in December, which could result in further retail price escalation. Already coffee retail prices in the US were up 41% year on year in September.

The US Senate voted to overturn the president’s tariffs on Brazil, but this is expected to be voted down in the House of Representatives. Hopes hinge on less tension between the nations’ presidents following a call between them last month, but observers like Mr Schiavone are not holding their breath. He does not see the prospect of charters rushing Brazilian coffee beans to the US in response to a significant drop in tariffs.

Brazil is one of the countries with which the US actually has a trade surplus, which points to a political bias rather than trade relations. Last year, US exports to Brazil climbed 10.3%, to $49.1bn, while imports expanded 8.4%, to $42.3bn. China eclipsed the US as Brazil’s biggest trading partner, importing $116.1bn worth of goods while $70bn worth of products went the opposite way.

US-Argentina goods trade amounted to $16.2bn in 2024, with southbound traffic worth $16.2bn and northbound merchandise valued at $7.1bn. Relations between the two nations made headlines with the White House’s $20bn bailout package to stabilise the peso, which drew some criticism from US farmers when Argentina temporarily removed an export tax on soybeans, triggering a massive sale of the commodity to China. The US president’s thoughts about beef imports from Argentina has also riled farmers, although the likely volume of beef shipments to the US would be low.

On cargo flows between the two nations, these gyrations appear not to have had any effect, Mr Schiavone said.

In the maritime sector, the schedule reliability of container lines going from South to North America slipped 6.7%, to 73.1%, in the August/September period, which was still 36.3% better than a year earlier, according to Sea-Intelligence’s Global Liner Performance Report for the month. The average delay was 3.8 days, up from 3.76 days in July/August, but down 4.31% year on year. Over the past six months, six carriers in the tradelane showed improving performance, while one was trending in the opposite direction.

CTS data show seafreight volumes from Central & South America to North America fell 8.6% year on year, reversing growth seen in previous months. Volume also sank in the opposite direction. Northbound pricing continued its upward trajectory that began in April, with rates climbing 4.1% in August, but the momentum slowed from an 11.4% jump in June.