February 13, 2026
Supply Chain's Most Volatile Week of 2026
The supply chain industry just witnessed its most dramatic week of the year—a five-day period that saw Congress fire a shot across the bow on tariffs, ocean freight rates accelerate their freefall, an obscure AI platform trigger a logistics stock massacre, and one of the world's largest port operators lose its CEO in a scandal that rocked global trade partnerships.
This wasn't just another week of incremental change. February 9-13 delivered a concentrated dose of the forces reshaping global commerce: political backlash against trade policy, structural overcapacity in container shipping, AI-driven disruption of freight brokerage, and reputational risk erupting into executive crises. Each development alone would merit close attention. Together, they signal that 2026's supply chain volatility is accelerating, not moderating.
The week's developments cut across every major domain—from Washington's tariff politics to Silicon Valley's automation ambitions, from manufacturing's first job gains in over a year to leadership implosions at maritime giants. For supply chain executives navigating this environment, the message is clear: the old playbooks are being rewritten in real time.
Congress Fires Shot Across Bow on Tariffs
The House of Representatives voted 219-211 on February 11 to terminate President Trump's tariffs on Canada, marking the first significant congressional pushback against the administration's expansive use of trade restrictions. Six Republicans crossed party lines to join Democrats in passing H.J. Res. 72, which seeks to end the 25% tariff on most Canadian goods and 35% levy on steel, aluminum, and copper.
The resolution now faces certain presidential veto, but the vote itself matters. It exposes growing GOP fractures over trade policy and demonstrates that tariff skepticism extends beyond coastal districts into heartland states where manufacturers are feeling the squeeze. The six Republican defectors—Thomas Massie (Kentucky), Kevin Kiley (California), Don Bacon (Nebraska), Dan Newhouse (Washington), Jeff Hurd (Colorado), and Brian Fitzpatrick (Pennsylvania)—represent districts where agricultural exporters and manufacturers have complained loudly about retaliatory Canadian tariffs.
Trump's response was characteristically blunt. "Any Republican, in the House or the Senate, that votes against TARIFFS will seriously suffer the consequences come Election time, and that includes Primaries!" he posted on Truth Social during the vote. The threat underscores how central tariffs have become to the administration's political identity, even as their economic impact grows increasingly contested.
While Congress was voting on Canada, the White House was quietly preparing to scale back tariffs on derivative steel and aluminum products, according to a February 13 Financial Times report. The proposed exemptions would cover items like pie tins, food cans, and other manufactured goods that use steel and aluminum as inputs rather than primary products. Aluminum prices on the London Metal Exchange fell 2.7% on the news, suggesting markets believe the administration is beginning to recognize the downstream costs of blanket tariffs.
The more significant trade development, however, may be happening with China. Multiple sources reported that the US and China are expected to extend their current trade truce for up to one year at a potential April summit in Beijing. The extension would freeze current tariff levels while both sides negotiate a more comprehensive agreement—essentially kicking the can down the road on the thorniest trade issues.
The US-Taiwan trade deal signed February 12 presents a different dynamic entirely. Taiwan committed TSMC to $165 billion in US investment across up to 12 fabrication facilities in Arizona—a massive expansion of semiconductor manufacturing capacity on American soil. But Taiwan's trade officials pushed back hard on US demands to relocate 40% of chip supply to the United States, calling the target "impossible" given the complexity of semiconductor supply chains and the concentration of advanced packaging capabilities in Asia.
The backdrop to all this trade maneuvering came from a New York Fed study released February 12, which found that nearly 90% of the tariff burden in 2025 fell on US firms and consumers rather than foreign exporters. The data directly contradicts the administration's claims that tariffs primarily hurt China and other trading partners, adding empirical weight to congressional skeptics' arguments.
For supply chain executives, the week's developments signal continued trade policy instability. The Canada vote won't overturn tariffs, but it demonstrates that political support for the administration's approach is softer than it appears. The steel and aluminum derivative exemptions suggest the White House is beginning to feel pressure from domestic manufacturers. And the US-China truce extension means another year of managing uncertainty rather than resolving it.
Ocean Rates in Freefall as Suez Reopening Reshapes Capacity
Container shipping rates extended their slide for a fifth consecutive week, with the Drewry World Container Index falling 1% to $1,933 per forty-foot equivalent unit on February 12. That's 40% below year-ago levels and represents the longest sustained decline since the post-pandemic normalization began.
The transpacific remains the weakest link. Shanghai-Los Angeles rates hit $2,214—down 53% year-over-year. Freightos reported Asia-US West Coast rates dropping 21% to $1,916 per FEU in a single week. Carriers responded with aggressive capacity cuts, announcing 125 blank sailings between February 9 and March 15, representing 18% of planned departures. Fully 63% of those cancellations hit the transpacific eastbound trade, underscoring how severely demand has deteriorated on the route that generates the highest margins for carriers.
The week's bombshell came February 11 when Maersk's Astrid Maersk transited the Suez Canal—the first vessel from the Gemini Cooperation's ME11 service to return to the Red Sea route since carriers diverted around Africa in late 2023. The transit occurred under naval escort and followed a Suez Canal Authority decision to offer 15% toll reductions to entice carriers back to the route.
Shipping analysts immediately began calculating the capacity implications. Returning to Suez would free up an estimated 6-8% of global container capacity currently tied up in the longer Cape of Good Hope routing. That's equivalent to adding hundreds of thousands of TEUs of effective capacity to the market without building a single new ship—exactly the opposite of what carriers need when rates are already in decline.
Not everyone is rushing back. The Premier Alliance announced it will maintain Red Sea diversions for its entire 2026 network, citing security concerns that a single successful transit doesn't resolve. Houthi attacks have diminished but haven't stopped, and carriers remain wary of exposing premium vessels and time-sensitive cargo to the risk.
The divergence in carrier strategies creates a fascinating game theory problem. If Maersk and its Gemini partners return to Suez while others stay on the Cape route, Gemini gains a significant transit time advantage on Asia-Europe trades. But if everyone rushes back to Suez simultaneously, the capacity glut intensifies and rates crater further. Carriers are essentially trapped in a prisoner's dilemma where the collectively rational move (staying on the Cape to keep capacity tight) conflicts with individual competitive incentives (returning to Suez to cut costs and transit times).
Port volumes reflected the freight market's weakness. ITS Logistics reported US imports of 2,318,722 TEU in January, down 6.8% year-over-year. The National Retail Federation's Global Port Tracker projects February volumes of 1.86 million TEU (down 8.5% YoY) and March volumes of 1.79 million TEU (down 16.8% YoY). These aren't minor fluctuations—they represent a sustained demand downturn that's forcing carriers into increasingly desperate capacity management.
Hapag-Lloyd's full-year 2025 results, released during the week, illustrated the industry's challenges. Revenue hit $21.1 billion with volumes up 8% to 13.5 million TEU, but average freight rates fell 8% to $1,376 per TEU. More concerning, fourth-quarter pretax earnings plunged 75% to approximately $200 million. The German carrier is moving more boxes but making far less money per box—the definition of a commoditized market.
COSCO, meanwhile, is playing the long game. The Chinese carrier launched a new CPV service linking Yangpu, Seattle, and Vancouver while announcing $2.7 billion in investment across 18 new vessels. Beijing's state-backed carriers continue building capacity even as Western carriers cut, betting that they can gain market share through a down cycle and emerge stronger when demand eventually recovers.
The strategic contradiction is stark: carriers need to remove capacity to support rates, but competitive pressures and long-term market share ambitions keep them adding ships. The Suez reopening possibility intensifies this dynamic, potentially flooding the market with effective capacity just as demand weakens. For shippers, it's a buyer's market. For carriers, it's a profitability crisis masked by volume growth.
AI Freight Tool Crashed Logistics Stocks
February 12 will be remembered as the day artificial intelligence moved from theoretical disruption to existential threat in the freight brokerage industry. The catalyst was SemiCab, a relatively obscure AI platform that announced its technology allows operators to scale freight volumes by 300-400% without adding headcount—and Wall Street's reaction was swift and brutal.
C.H. Robinson plunged 14.5%. RXO collapsed 20.5%. Expeditors International dropped 13.2%. XPO fell nearly 6%. J.B. Hunt declined about 5%. In a single session, logistics stocks shed billions in market capitalization, with the Russell 3000 Trucking Index sliding 6.6%. The selloff drew immediate comparisons to the DeepSeek moment that rattled AI infrastructure stocks—only this time, the disruption was pointed squarely at the $900 billion American freight industry.
SemiCab's platform, marketed as an AI-enabled predictive optimization engine, claims to enable individual operators to manage over 2,000 loads annually—nearly quadruple the industry standard of roughly 500 loads per broker. More jarring for investors was the efficiency metric: the system reportedly achieves over 70% reduction in empty miles, the industry's most persistent profitability drain.
The company behind SemiCab is Algorhythm Holdings, a penny stock that until recently was known as The Singing Machine Company, a karaoke equipment manufacturer. After selling its music business to Stingray for $4.5 million in 2025, Algorhythm pivoted to AI freight logistics—a corporate transformation that would be comical if it weren't currently terrorizing a trillion-dollar industry. Algorhythm shares popped 29.9% on the announcement.
The market reaction reflects deeper anxieties about AI's ability to commoditize what carriers and brokers have long considered proprietary competitive advantages: relationships, knowledge of lanes, understanding of seasonal patterns, and the human judgment required to match freight with capacity efficiently. If an AI can replicate those capabilities at a fraction of the cost, the entire middle layer of the logistics industry faces disintermediation.
Baird analyst Daniel Moore attempted to calm markets, noting "automation is not a new theme" and arguing that only large tech-enabled players like C.H. Robinson and Expeditors possess the data depth required for successful AI execution. But the reassurance fell flat. The SemiCab announcement wasn't about gradual automation—it was about order-of-magnitude efficiency gains that bypass the need for extensive historical data by optimizing in real time.
C.H. Robinson issued a rare public statement addressing the stock decline, defending its AI capabilities and noting it has outperformed the freight market for eight consecutive quarters. The company emphasized its strong balance sheet, investment-grade credit rating, and 27 consecutive years of dividend increases. But the defensive posture itself signals how seriously the company views the AI threat.
The SemiCab panic occurred against a backdrop of broader trucking market dynamics. The FMCSA's non-domiciled CDL final rule, published February 13 and effective March 16, restricts commercial driver's licenses to H-2A, H-2B, and E-2 visa holders only. Labor unions immediately filed suit on February 14, arguing the rule doesn't go far enough to protect American truckers.
The CDL restrictions amplify the AI disruption narrative. If driver availability tightens due to immigration restrictions while AI dramatically increases broker productivity, the freight industry faces a pincer movement: labor constraints on the physical hauling side and technological commoditization on the coordination side.
Saia's fourth-quarter earnings, released February 10, illustrated the less-than-load carrier segment's struggles. EPS of $1.77 came in 38% below year-ago and missed consensus by $0.14, driven by $4.7 million in unexpected insurance costs. Shares fell 4.2% pre-market. The company cut 2026 net capex guidance to $350-400 million, down from $544 million in 2025—a clear signal of diminished growth expectations.
Yet beneath the headline weakness, tender rejection rates tell a different story. Rejection rates exceed 13% despite volumes running 6-7% below year-ago levels. This is supply-driven tightening—carriers are pulling capacity offline faster than demand is falling, creating pockets of tightness even in a generally oversupplied market.
The Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger remains in regulatory limbo, with the Surface Transportation Board setting a February 17 deadline for the companies to signal their intent to refile. If approved, the rail consolidation would remove competition on key lanes, potentially shifting more freight to truck—which would benefit carriers but intensify the brokerage disruption that SemiCab represents.
The AI freight panic isn't irrational. It's a market finally recognizing that software doesn't just augment freight brokerage—it threatens to replace entire layers of it. The companies that survive will be those that can integrate AI capabilities faster than new entrants can replicate their customer relationships. That's a far narrower moat than the industry believed it possessed.
Manifest 2026 Unleashed Wave of Supply Chain AI
While SemiCab dominated headlines, the real story of supply chain automation emerged from the Manifest 2026 conference in Las Vegas, where February 9-11 saw over 50 AI and robotics platforms launch or announce major deployments. The event showcased an industry moving from pilot projects to production scale at a pace that's leaving incumbents scrambling.
FourKites launched its Loft AI orchestration platform featuring "Sophie," an AI developer agent that converts standard operating procedures into production automations. The platform's promise is radical: supply chain teams can describe workflows in natural language, and the AI translates them into functioning automation—no coding required. If it works as advertised, it democratizes automation beyond the IT departments of Fortune 500 companies.
Symbotic acquired Fox Robotics, which deploys autonomous forklifts across 54 sites with over 100 FoxBots in operation. Symbotic's first-quarter revenue hit $630 million, up 29% year-over-year, demonstrating that warehouse automation is transitioning from emerging technology to established revenue stream. The Fox Robotics acquisition fills a gap in Symbotic's portfolio, adding mobile autonomous capabilities to complement its high-density storage systems.
Apptronik, a humanoid robotics company, closed a $520 million Series A extension on February 11, bringing total fundraising to approximately $1 billion at a $5 billion valuation. Investors include AT&T Ventures, John Deere, Qatar Investment Authority, Google, and Mercedes-Benz—a roster that signals serious enterprise commitment to humanoid automation. The capital injection positions Apptronik to scale manufacturing and accelerate deployments beyond current pilots.
Corvus Robotics demonstrated autonomous drones capable of operating in -20°F environments, already deployed at Kroger's cold-chain facilities. Dexory unveiled its next-generation warehouse scanning robot with improved accuracy and speed. These aren't concept demonstrations—they're production deployments solving real operational challenges.
The scope of automation deployment became clearer in a February 13 CNBC report revealing that UPS has automated 127 buildings and plans to add 24 more in 2026, targeting 68% of US volume flowing through automated facilities. DHL reported 10,000 automation projects globally, up from just 240 in 2020—a 40x increase in six years.
The SELF DRIVE Act passed the House subcommittee 12-11 on February 10, authorizing revenue-generating autonomous freight operations. The legislation removes regulatory barriers that have kept self-driving trucks confined to test programs, opening the path to commercial deployment. Kodiak AI responded immediately, announcing 10 fully driverless trucks operating 24/7 in Texas and targeting long-haul driverless launch in the second half of 2026.
The automation acceleration isn't happening in isolation. It's occurring as manufacturing shows tentative signs of recovery, creating a paradox: factory activity is expanding while factory employment automation intensifies. The question isn't whether automation will transform logistics and manufacturing—it's whether the transformation happens fast enough to offset labor shortages or too fast for displaced workers to transition.
The Manifest 2026 consensus was clear: automation has crossed from "nice to have" to "must have" for competitive survival. Companies that don't automate aggressively will find themselves unable to compete on speed, accuracy, or cost. But the SemiCab panic earlier in the week demonstrated that markets are only beginning to price in the disruption this automation wave represents.
Manufacturing Wakes Up as DP World Leadership Implodes
US factories added 5,000 jobs in January—the first gain after 13 consecutive months of losses. The number is small, but the direction matters. Combined with the ISM Manufacturing PMI hitting 52.6% (the first expansion in 12 months after 26 months of contraction), the data suggests American manufacturing may have bottomed.
The ISM's New Orders Index jumped to 57.1%, the highest reading since February 2022. New orders lead production, and production leads hiring—so the January employment gain may be the leading edge of broader manufacturing recovery. The question is whether the expansion reflects genuine demand growth or pre-tariff inventory building. Commentary from purchasing managers suggested both factors are at play, with some firms explicitly citing efforts to "get ahead of expected price increases due to ongoing tariff issues."
Siemens provided hard evidence of manufacturing momentum in its first-quarter fiscal 2026 results released February 12. Orders hit €21.4 billion, up 10%, driven by a record €1.8 billion in data center orders. US orders surged 54%, and Siemens raised full-year EPS guidance—a confident signal from a company with deep visibility into industrial investment.
Applied Materials faced a different reckoning. The Bureau of Industry and Security hit the company with a $252.2 million penalty on February 11 for illegally exporting ion implanters to China's SMIC. The shipments—56 in total between 2021 and 2022—were routed through Applied Materials' Korean subsidiary in an apparent attempt to circumvent export controls that took effect after SMIC was added to the Entity List in December 2020.
The penalty is the maximum allowed under law, calculated at twice the transaction value of approximately $126 million. Applied Materials terminated employees responsible for the shipments and committed to multiple export compliance audits. The Department of Justice and SEC closed related investigations without action, allowing Applied Materials to settle and move forward. But the episode demonstrates the risks semiconductor equipment makers face navigating US-China technology restrictions.
Stellantis sold its 49% stake in the NextStar Energy battery plant in Windsor, Canada, to partner LG Energy Solution for $100 on February 9. The transaction valued Stellantis's share of a $5 billion CAD investment at essentially zero, marking one of the more dramatic writedowns in the electric vehicle battery buildout. The plant, designed for 45 GWh of annual capacity, represents the kind of massive EV infrastructure bet that's now being reassessed as growth projections moderate.
Amkor Technology delivered the opposite narrative. The semiconductor packaging company beat fourth-quarter estimates by 60% on February 12 and announced $2.5-3 billion in capital expenditures for 2026, part of a $7 billion multi-phase Arizona investment. Advanced packaging—the technology that connects chiplets into integrated systems—is emerging as a strategic bottleneck, and Amkor is positioning to capture that spend.
The manufacturing data presents a contradictory picture: PMI expansion and job gains suggest recovery, but the composition of that recovery matters enormously. Semiconductor equipment and advanced packaging are booming. Data center infrastructure is setting records. Traditional automotive manufacturing is retrenching. Electric vehicle battery investments are being written down. The "manufacturing recovery" is actually a massive sectoral reallocation favoring AI infrastructure and advanced semiconductors while legacy industrial categories contract.
Then came the week's most stunning executive departure. DP World announced on February 13 that Chairman and CEO Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem had resigned "effective immediately" following revelations of his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The US Department of Justice's latest Epstein file release revealed that the financier referred to Sulayem as a "close personal friend" and "one of my most trusted friends."
Emails between the two men, spanning from before Epstein's 2008 conviction through years afterward, included discussions of business deals, connections, and arrangements that prompted Canada's second-largest pension fund (La Caisse) to pause "additional capital deployment" alongside DP World. British International Investment followed suit. The pressure became untenable, and Sulayem stepped aside within days of his name being publicly revealed.
DP World appointed Essa Kazim as Chairman and Yuvraj Narayan as Group CEO. La Caisse and British International Investment both announced they would resume partnerships following the leadership change, emphasizing they distinguished between "the company, DP World, from the individual." But the episode demonstrates how quickly reputational crises can force leadership changes in globally interconnected industries where institutional investors demand immediate action.
The Sulayem resignation bookends a week that saw another high-profile Epstein-related departure: Goldman Sachs's top lawyer Kathy Ruemmler resigned over her own connections to the disgraced financier. The Epstein files continue to reverberate through executive suites, and DP World's swift action suggests companies have learned that defending compromised leaders is more costly than replacing them.
Security Threats and Geopolitical Risks Intensify
The Astrid Maersk's Suez Canal transit occurred under naval escort, underscoring that security risks haven't disappeared—they've just been temporarily suppressed. Houthi attacks have diminished in frequency but remain a persistent threat, and the decision to return to the Red Sea represents a calculated risk rather than an all-clear signal.
The Premier Alliance's decision to maintain Red Sea diversions for all of 2026 reflects a different risk calculus. For some carriers, the potential damage to vessels, cargo delays, and insurance premium increases outweigh the transit time and fuel cost savings of the Suez route. This divergence in carrier strategies creates competitive imbalances: some will benefit from shorter transit times while others pay the Cape penalty but avoid security risks.
The Iran secondary tariffs executive order, published February 11, adds another layer of complexity. The order imposes an additional 25% tariff on imports from countries that maintain trade with Iran—a provision that could theoretically apply to major trading partners including China, India, and several European nations. The implementation details remain unclear, but the potential for cascading trade restrictions is significant.
Cybersecurity threats escalated with the discovery of the "Shai-Hulud" npm supply chain worm, which compromised over 500 packages. The attack demonstrates the vulnerability of software supply chains, where a single compromised dependency can propagate through thousands of downstream applications. For logistics companies increasingly dependent on software infrastructure, supply chain security now extends beyond physical cargo to digital dependencies.
The Critical Minerals Ministerial produced 11 new bilateral memoranda of understanding and launched a trilateral US-EU-Japan partnership alongside the FORGE multilateral body (with South Korea as chair). The flurry of agreements reflects recognition that critical mineral supply chains represent a strategic vulnerability and competitive advantage simultaneously. Securing access to lithium, rare earths, and battery materials isn't just an industrial policy goal—it's a national security imperative.
The mineral security push connects directly to manufacturing reshoring and EV infrastructure buildout. Without secure sources of critical inputs, domestic manufacturing capacity means little. The partnerships announced this week attempt to create alternative supply chains that bypass Chinese dominance, but that's a multi-decade project requiring massive investment in mining, refining, and processing capacity.
The Bottom Line: Three Defining Tensions
The week of February 9-13 crystallized three tensions that will define supply chain strategy for the remainder of 2026:
Overcapacity Reckoning: Ocean freight rates fell for a fifth consecutive week as the potential Suez reopening threatens to flood the market with effective capacity. Carriers face impossible math: they need to remove ships to support rates, but competitive pressures and market share ambitions keep them adding capacity. The prisoner's dilemma intensifies as individual carriers calculate whether to return to Suez (gaining transit time advantage) or stay on the Cape (preserving collective capacity discipline). For shippers, this means continued rate pressure and negotiating leverage. For carriers, it means profitability crisis.
AI Disruption Acceleration: The SemiCab-triggered stock crash wasn't about one platform—it was about markets finally pricing in the reality that AI doesn't just improve logistics, it commoditizes it. The Manifest 2026 conference showcased over 50 platforms moving from pilot to production. UPS automating 127 facilities and DHL deploying 10,000 projects signal that automation has crossed from innovation to operational imperative. The companies that survive won't be those with the best relationships or deepest institutional knowledge—they'll be those that integrate AI capabilities fastest.
Trade Policy Instability: Congress fired a symbolic shot against Canada tariffs, the White House prepared exemptions for derivative products, and the US-China truce headed for another extension. None of this represents policy clarity—it represents continued uncertainty. Add Taiwan's pushback on semiconductor relocation targets and the NY Fed study showing 90% of tariff burden falling on US firms, and what emerges is a trade environment where the rules keep changing but never resolve.
Manufacturing's tentative recovery (5,000 jobs gained, ISM expansion, record data center orders) occurs against this backdrop of freight overcapacity, AI disruption, and trade instability. The recovery is real but fragile, concentrated in semiconductors and data infrastructure while traditional industrial categories contract.
The DP World CEO resignation demonstrates that reputational risk can force leadership changes faster than any operational crisis. In globally connected industries where institutional investors demand immediate action on ethics scandals, executives serve at the pleasure of pension funds and sovereign wealth partners.
February 9-13 wasn't an anomaly—it was an acceleration. The forces reshaping supply chains are intensifying, not moderating. The executives who thrive in this environment will be those who recognize that defensive strategies no longer work. The old moats—relationships, proprietary knowledge, established networks—are being eroded by AI, commoditized by overcapacity, and disrupted by geopolitical instability. The new advantage goes to those who can move fastest, automate most aggressively, and navigate uncertainty most effectively.
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