Porti & ambiente — le notizie raccolte

Canada was looking in from the outside as formal negotiations on the future of the North American USMCA free trade agreement between Mexico and the US kicked off in Mexico City last Thursday. After two rounds of preparatory talks earlier this year, officials of the two sides started the first of three rounds of formal negotiations to iron out their differences and clear the way for the tripartite agreement on the renewal of the free-trade framework for the next 16 years. Further sessions are scheduled for mid-June and July. The US and Canada are yet to set dates for formal talks on USMCA. The first round of Mexico-US talks was focused on the themes of economic security and rules of origin for key industrial goods, touching on the automotive, medical devices, steel and aluminium sectors. The second session, scheduled for 16-17 June in Washington, will deal primarily with agriculture and a “level playing field”, while the third is due on 20 July in the Mexican capital. While no details of the negotiations were released, both sides declared they progressed ‘in an orderly manner’ and stressed the “constructive atmosphere and frank dialogue” of the session. It remains to be seen in how far this has shrunk the gap in key positions between them, notably US tariffs on steel and aluminium and levies on cars. Mexico’s economy minister, Marcelo Ebrard, who led his side’s delegation, has called the 50% tariffs on the former “unsustainable” as well as “unjustified”. On the automotive sector he emphasised the need for a framework covering all three USMCA partners that ensures systemic competitive strength vis-à-vis international rivals. That the US imposes lower tariffs (15%) on cars from the EU, Japan and South Korea than on vehicles from Mexico is one major irritant in this arena. Industry organisations from all three USMCA countries have stressed the importance of collective North American competitiveness and urged governments to extend the free-trade arrangement that generates nearly $1.6bn in annual trade between them. In a joint letter to US trade representative Jamieson Greer, 69 US business associations called USMCA “critical to the competitiveness of the US”. This does not mean that industry bodies favour concessions to secure fast passage of the USMCA extension. Mexico’s private sector, including the supply chain industry, has expressed support for a firm stance on concessions to secure a treaty renewal. It has urged the government to prioritise long-term competitiveness over certainty derived from an early completion of the negotiations. Eva María Muñoz, president of AMACARGA, Mexico’s national cargo agents’ association, commented that all firms in the logistics sector could adjust their plans and projections dealing with uncertainty. The prospect of a treaty renewal by 1 July has been officially buried. Both Messrs Ebrard and Greer have commented that it would take longer to reach common ground to renew USMCA. For that matter, the third round of bilateral talks between Washington and Mexico City is now scheduled for 20 July, and it will be some time before the US and Canada work through their differences to set the stage for tripartite talks. Canada’s minister responsible for US trade, Dominic LeBlanc, is planning to travel to Washington for trade talks, but a date has not been confirmed. Over the past seven months Mr LeBlanc has held just one day of talks with Mr Greer. The latter has stated that Washington had “significant differences” with Ottawa that would be difficult to resolve, citing issues that are “well beyond trade irritants”. He bristled at Canadian counter tariffs (the only nation other than China to do so) and a ban on US liquor in licensed alcohol retail outlets, and Ottawa’s refusal to make concessions to US demands in order to start negotiations. Comments by Canadian prime minister Mark Carney on a changing global trade landscape, an agreement allowing 49,000 electric vehicles to be imported from China into Canada in a 12-month period at a tariff rate of around 6%, and negotiations with Saab to buy a fleet of surveillance aircraft to replace the Canadian air force’s current US-made models have not endeared the northern USMCA member to the White House. The only concession that Washington has offered to Canadian firms was a tariff reduction for steel makers if they commit to set up production in the US. In March, US cross-border truck freight was up 5%, driven by 13% growth in traffic with Mexico, whereas Canadian volume was down 7%. For their part, Canadian officials have declared themselves ready to sit down and negotiate, waiting for their US counterparts to get ready. Meanwhile, the US president has indicated he might walk away from USMCA and opt for bilateral treaties, a position that both Ottawa and Mexico City have firmly rejected, insisting that a regional free-trade structure is essential for global competition. They are also opposed to tariffs, a position that clashes with Washington’s ambitions. Mr Greer insisted that the US would have tariffs, “even with somebody ​like Mexico, or other countries that are in our own hemisphere, we’re going to have tariffs as ⁠long as we have a giant trade deficit.” US logistics firms appear unfazed by the USMCA rhetoric, at least as far as Mexico is concerned. Last month, UPS, Werner Enterprises, CPKC-CSX and CH Robinson announced upgrades or expansions of services into Mexico.

European logistics leaders are caught in a high-stakes pincer movement. A deficit of over 400,000 drivers and severe macroeconomic pressure have forced supply chains into permanent volatility. Unprecedented reliance on spot capacity has exposed a systemic vulnerability gap — one being ruthlessly exploited by highly organized cybercriminals. Annual global cargo losses are estimated at $40 billion, with EU cargo crime alone accounting for up to €8.3 billion each year, according to a European Parliament study. Yet the industry’s response remains dangerously outdated. In an era where cargo crime has shifted from physical break-ins to digital identity theft, a boardroom-level risk is still being managed with entry-level operational tools. How criminals exploit the spot market The arithmetic of modern logistics is brutal: goods must move fast. When contract capacity fails, dispatchers are pushed into unmanaged, unverified channels — social media groups, messaging chats, open forums — in a desperate rush to secure trucks. Speed wins over security almost every time. Organized Crime Groups understand this desperation intimately. They no longer need physical access to steal a shipment — just a spoofed domain, a cloned identity, and patience. What we are witnessing is a systematic migration from physical cargo theft to digital impersonation — and it is accelerating. In one common scenario, a criminal network acquires a legitimate carrier’s documents and registers a lookalike domain differing by a single character. In more targeted attacks, OCGs deploy phishing-based mailbox takeovers, hijacking a real company’s email to silently intercept load assignments. In both cases, the fraud is invisible until the truck that arrives is not the one that was booked. The illusion of static vetting The core vulnerability is systemic: a logistics infrastructure built on unverified trust and static compliance checks. When a freight forwarder assigns a load under time pressure, vetting is attestation-based. A carrier asserts they hold the required licenses, cargo insurance, and security certifications, and provides PDF copies that are manually reviewed and filed away. But a PDF is static data, and in a volatile threat environment, static data is an illusion of safety. Shippers have limited means to verify whether a certificate is authentic, active, or quietly lapsed. Worse, criminal groups have begun buying clean, older transport entities on the underground market specifically to bypass credit and age vetting checks. When onboarding happens once a year, the space between “claimed compliance” and “real-time validity” becomes the exact corridor where multi-million-euro cargo losses occur. Beyond the false dichotomy: standards vs. execution Critics of centralized platforms rightly point to open technical standards: email authentication protocols, qualified electronic signatures, rigorous domain verification. In a well-resourced, methodical environment, these tools are genuinely powerful. But the spot freight market is not that environment. It is chaotic, time-compressed, and staffed by people under intense pressure. The gap between a standard existing and a dispatcher applying it correctly — every time, under deadline — is precisely where cargo fraud lives. The role of a modern logistics platform is not to replace these standards, but to act as the automated clearinghouse that executes them at scale. Security cannot be a slow checklist that competes with velocity. It must be embedded directly into the transaction — invisible, continuous, and faster than the shortcut. A boardroom liability, not an operational nuisance The industry has spent years treating cargo fraud as something managed at dispatcher level. The data says otherwise. This is a boardroom liability, and it demands a boardroom response. That response starts with one non-negotiable principle: verification cannot be a one-time event. Every actor in the supply chain must move toward networks where counterparty identity, compliance status, and security credentials are validated continuously — not declared once on a document that sits in a filing system until something goes wrong. The technology exists. The standards exist. What has been missing is the collective will to make continuous verification the baseline, not the exception. The crisis of cargo fraud will not be solved on the road. It will be solved in the platforms and processes the industry chooses to build upon.

"La prima serata di ieri ci consegna un dato straordinario: gli italiani desiderano stare accanto ai più fragili. San Francesco benedica ogni gesto di amore verso gli ultimi. Porto con me un'affermazione di Sal Da Vinci: 'Quando fai del bene ti senti benedetto da Dio Padre e dagli uomini. Continuiamo fino al 30 giugno'". E' quanto ha affermato padre Enzo Fortunato, coordinatore dell'evento "Con il cuore, nel nome di Francesco", la maratona di solidarietà dei frati del Sacro convento di San Francesco in Assisi nell'ambito della quale si è svolto ieri sera, in diretta su Rai1 il concerto benefico condotto da Carlo Contidal sagrato della chiesa superiore della Basilica di San Francesco. Per il concerto - sottolineando i francescani - ascolti in crescita rispetto allo scorso anno con picchi di 2.800.000 spettatori e uno share del 18,3%. La replica della serata andrà in onda domenica 28 giugno alle 16.00 circa su Rai1. Tra i momenti più toccanti della serata sono state come sempre le testimonianze di chi opera in prima linea nell'accoglienza e nella cura delle persone in difficoltà: tra queste, Pasquale Padulano, volontario del Centro Accoglienza Padre Elia Alleva, noto come Mensa del Carmine, ha raccontato le attività dello storico punto di riferimento a Napoli per l'assistenza ai bisognosi. Fra Diego Dalle Carbonare, provinciale superiore missionari comboniani Egitto e Sudan, e suor Elena Rastello, Figlia di Maria Ausiliatrice, hanno raccontato i progetti che saranno realizzati in Sudan. Il Paese è devastato dalla guerra civile: qui si intende ricostruire scuole e sostenere l'educazione di giovani e donne. Infine, Monica De Angeli, direttrice generale, e Stefania Sinigaglia, psicoterapeuta, hanno raccontato l'attività della Comunità San Francesco a Monselice (Padova), dove vengono accolte persone con problemi di tossicodipendenza, con particolare attenzione a donne e minori. Qui, il progetto "mamma-bambino" sostiene giovani madri tossicodipendenti con figli piccoli, offrendo un ambiente sicuro e percorsi di autonomia. La maratona di solidarietà continua fino al 30 giugno. Per partecipare basta inviare un sms o chiamare da telefono fisso al 45515, oppure donare online tramite il sito www.conilcuore.info "Il grazie della comunità francescana - ha proseguito padre Fortunato - va ai vertici Rai, che da 24 anni sostengono questo straordinario progetto di bene e di bontà. Grazie al direttore Intrattenimento Prime Time Rai, Williams Di Liberatore, al capostruttura Intrattenimento Prime Time 7, Cristiano D'Agostini, e a tutta la grande famiglia Rai, che, come di consueto, ha messo a disposizione le sue migliori professionalità per la realizzazione di questo evento solidale. Grazie a Carlo Conti e ai tanti artisti che hanno voluto prestare e donare la loro voce per san Francesco, assicurando che ogni gesto arriverà direttamente nelle mani di chi soffre e chiede aiuto. Grazie alle forze dell'ordine che come sempre hanno garantito lo svolgimento dell'evento in totale sicurezza. Grazie a Eni e Poste Italiane, partner sostenitori dell'iniziativa, per la sensibilità verso progetti che edificano e fanno crescere l'umanità. Grazie alle testimonianze che sono state portate sul palco: ci hanno fatto toccare con mano quello che accade intorno a noi". Riproduzione riservata © Copyright ANSA