Transportation and logistics services

Global markets rally after temporary U.S.–China trade truce

12.05.2025

The U.S. and China agreed to reduce tariffs for 90 days, pausing the trade war and boosting global stock markets. U.S. tariffs will drop from 145% to 30%, and China’s from 125% to 10%.

While markets cheered the move, uncertainty remains. Core issues like trade imbalances, subsidies, and the fentanyl crisis remain unresolved. Businesses are cautious despite the relief.

Some companies are resuming shipments but remain wary of long-term policy shifts.

The UAE Has Gulf of Aden Shipping Covered

21.04.2025

Imagery widely reported in social media has shown the deployment of an EL/M-2084 radar within the grounds of an Emirati military base at Bosaso, in Somalia’s Puntland region.

The Israeli-manufactured and widely exported EL/M-2084 radar has a 290-mile surveillance range. Mounted on a berm built for the purpose to give it extra range, the radar has the capability to detect, locate and track the full range of missile, aircraft and drone targets across the full width of the Gulf of Aden, from Aden in the west to well beyond Mukulla in the east. This is a sea area through which the currently under-used Internationally Recommended Transit Corridor passes.

Until recently this was an area in which the Houthis mounted a large number of attacks, but whether through lack of targets or the effectiveness of US air operations against the Houthis’ missile and drone infrastructure, such attacks are much diminished in recent months. Reflecting monitoring by UKMTO in Dubai, the main threat in the area now appears to come from low-level Somali-based pirates.

The EL/M-2084 is a particularly effective radar, as noted by its export success with ‘front line’ nations such as Azerbaijan, Finland, and India. Used at longer ranges for air surveillance, at shorter ranges it can be used for acquisition purposes, tied into air defense systems such as Iron Dome.

Bosaso is one of a string of Emirati light-footprint bases which the UAE maintains to cover the Gulf of Aden and approaches to the Red Sea. The presence of Emirati bases at Bosaso and at Hadibo airport on the island of Socotra is de facto acknowledged by the respective host governments. The status of recently-constructed airfields and associated possible surveillance facilities on the islands of Perim, at the southern entrance to the Red Sea and at Abd Al Kuri, is more contested.

The UAE has not formally acknowledged its military presence at any of these facilities, nor for any in North Africa. Whilst a single EL/M-2084 radar at Bosaso is effective enough on its own, if it were networked with other such systems on Perim and on Abd Al Kuri, the surveillance coverage would intersect and overlap, providing corroboration and triangulation of targets detected, and hence greater precision. However, even the best surveillance on its own is of limited value, unless linked in with systems which can respond, and there is no evidence of active air defense systems being positioned to cover these areas.

Chinese Shipping Company Wants to Lease the Former U.S. Base at Adak

15.04.2025

The head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command supports reactivating the naval airbase at Adak, a remote Cold War station in the Aleutian Islands - but the U.S. military isn't the only interested party, according to Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK). An unnamed Chinese shipping company has also reached out to the current landowner to express interest in negotiating a lease, Sullivan said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Thursday.

Adak was a key naval base throughout the Cold War, providing a logistics and surveillance hub near Russia's eastern shores. After the Base Realignment and Closure Commission process in the mid-1990s, it was shut down, and it ceased operations in 1997. The land is now held by the native Aleut Corporation.

The port's remoteness and austerity are hard to overstate: at 1,000 nautical miles west of Anchorage, it is closer to the capital of Russia's Kamchatka region than it is Alaska's main city. It is the second-rainiest place in the United States, and is subject to extreme winds, including hurricane-force North Pacific winter storms. As of 2022 it had a population of about 150 people, down from 6,000 at its peak.

The U.S. military still holds occasional exercises at Adak, and talk of reviving the base has circulated since at least 2021. The regional security situation is changing: Over the last three years, Russian and Chinese forces have begun operating jointly in the North Pacific and Bering Sea, sometimes crossing over into the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone. These transits have received considerable attention, and Adak would be a natural location for an enhanced U.S. deterrent presence, Sen. Sullivan said Thursday.

Adm. Sam Paparo, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, told the committee that he also favors reactivating Adak. "It is a further western point which would enable . . . [gaining] time and distance on any force capability that's looking to penetrate," Paparo said. "It would enable up to 10x the maritime patrol reconnaissance aircraft coverage of that key and increasingly contested space."

Sullivan suggested that Adak should be reactivated as a matter of urgency, as the U.S. Navy is not the only prospective tenant.

"The Aleut Corporation, these are great patriotic Americans. Alaska Natives serve at higher rates in the military than any other ethnic group in the country. They would love to do a deal with the Navy for a 99 year lease or something like that. But you know who checks in with them once a year?" Sullivan asked. "It's a Chinese shipping company that is, certainly, in my view, a front company for the [Chinese military]. So how embarrassing would it be to the Pentagon or the Navy . . . if somehow they signed 100 year lease with a quote 'Chinese shipping company' that always is out there looking at Adak?"

Sullivan emphasized that the Aleut Corporation would never sign a port lease with a Chinese firm, but asked Paparo his opinion all the same.

"I think it would be bad, because this is the modus operandi in [China's] Belt and Road Initiative," Paparo replied.

Northern Command and Indo-Pacific Command are working on a set of options to reactivate the base, Sullivan said, and he pressed for a final report before the end of the month.