FedEx’s China Woes Cap Week of Industrial Angst
As the manufacturing slowdown intensifies, the risk of China blacklisting the courier and others is getting more serious. Plus more industrial insights.
FedEx is caught in the crosshairs of the U.S.-China trade war. Who’s next?
Photographer: Nelson Ching/Bloomberg
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Add China boycotts to your list of things to worry about for industrial companies. Concerns that the country may weaponize its purchasing power and blacklist American entities have been bubbling since the start of the U.S.-China trade war, but actual evidence of China doing so has been muted and it remained mostly a theoretical threat. That may be starting to change: China on Friday said it didn’t buy FedEx Corp.’s argument that packages involving Huawei Technologies Co. documents and products were rerouted due to operational errors. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said authorities had found other FedEx activities in violation of the law, and people familiar with the matter have told Bloomberg News the country has been preparing to add FedEx to a blacklist of “unreliable entities.” Meanwhile, China’s State Post Bureau has said the country will encourage domestic logistics providers to expand overseas by reducing their costs and shortening approval procedures.