Unboxing the Trends February: Tariffs and a New Postmaster General With Lori Boyer and Tim Ranagan From EasyPost

Last month, Lori and Tim kicked off the Unboxing the Trends series, which features short monthly episodes covering the latest shipping and logistics happenings. In this episode, they discuss two major developments in February: new tariffs against key U.S. trading partners and the resignation of USPS’s postmaster general.

Tariffs have gone into effect

After a month-long pause, new tariffs against Canada, Mexico, and China went into effect this week. But the question remains: Will the tariffs stick? 

Based on her research, Lori doesn’t think so. She believes there’s a 60% to 70% chance that the tariffs will eventually be paused again or adjusted. 

“Most experts believe that these are mostly bargaining techniques. … I think that across the board, most of them are eventually going to ease up. That being said … maybe they won't. So flexibility, agility, that's the name of the game.”

USPS Postmaster General DeJoy is stepping down

This is big news if you ship with USPS—Postmaster General DeJoy recently announced that he’s stepping down. Unfortunately, we don’t yet know who will replace him or how the change will affect the Postal Service.

Lori shares a few things she’s wondering about: “[The] Ten-Year [Plan]—is that still going to be going? What's going to happen with consolidation? … [DeJoy] came from a logistics background; will we have another commerce, logistics background person? Will we go more of a traditional route? … Are we going to get more adjustments to the service levels and plans that are out there?”

We’re officially in wait-and-see mode

Hopefully, all of our questions about tariffs and the new postmaster general are answered soon; for now, as Tim puts it, the only thing we can do is wait and see.

“I think the theme of this episode is let's wait and see. That's true of the tariffs. That's true of the postmaster general news. Let's just wait and see how the dust settles, so to speak.”

Links

• Connect with Lori on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/loribboyer/
• Connect with Tim on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-ranagan-mba-2717bb125/
• Visit EasyPost’s website: https://www.easypost.com/