Central Banks Stuck, Supply Chains Redrawn, Freight Cheap But Unreliable

Trade Wire — Friday 27 February 2026 Your weekly intelligence brief on the forces shaping cross-border trade. Built for importers, exporters, and the finance teams behind them.

1. Central Banks Are Stuck — And Your Margins Are Paying the Price

The Bank of England held rates at 3.75% on 5 February in a split 5-4 vote. The ECB kept its deposit rate at 2.0% for the fifth consecutive meeting. The Fed is sitting at 3.50-3.75% after 175 basis points of cuts since September 2024, but has signalled a pause while inflation remains above 2%. The Bank of Canada and RBI have both cut further, but cautiously.

The picture is clear: the era of rapid rate cuts is over. Most major central banks have either finished cutting or slowed to a crawl, and long-term yields remain stubbornly elevated thanks to record sovereign debt, defence spending, and a structural shift in who holds government bonds — from central banks to hedge funds and insurers with far greater price sensitivity.

What this means for your business: The cost of hedging, trade finance, and working capital hasn't come down the way many expected. If you're an importer carrying 60-90 day payment terms with overseas suppliers, your financing cost is still materially higher than it was in 2021. Forward contracts cost more. Letters of credit cost more. And if you're relying on your bank's FX desk to convert currencies without questioning the markup, the spread they're baking in hasn't narrowed either — banks have no incentive to pass through savings when the rate environment gives them cover.

The businesses that protect their margins right now aren't the ones waiting for rates to fall further. They're the ones who've already separated their FX execution from their banking relationship and locked in forward rates at levels that make their landed-cost models work. Waiting is a strategy — but it's an expensive one.

2. Supply Chain Geography Is Being Redrawn — And Every New Corridor Costs Money

The US Supreme Court struck down Trump's reciprocal tariffs under IEEPA last week, but the underlying structural shift hasn't reversed. US tariffs on Chinese goods remain elevated under Section 301. The November 2025 US-China trade truce set a framework but left significant duties intact. ASEAN nations settled at 19-20% tariff rates with carve-outs. And the tighter enforcement of rules-of-origin — particularly scrutiny of Chinese content in goods assembled in Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia — means that "China+1" is no longer just about moving a factory. It's about rebuilding entire supply ecosystems.

The Rhodium Group's analysis is blunt: supply chains move when "landed cost" — production plus shipping, duties, and insurance — makes the math work. India is positioning aggressively through "Make in India" incentives, with Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Foxconn all pledging manufacturing investment. Vietnam's electronics exports to the US have surged. Inter-ASEAN trade is deepening, and countries from Indonesia to Malaysia are fast-tracking new FTA negotiations with the EU, Canada, and Africa to reduce dependence on any single market.

What this means for your business: Every time you add a new sourcing country, you add a new currency pair, a new payment corridor, and a new set of compliance obligations. A UK wholesaler who sourced exclusively from Guangdong two years ago might now be splitting orders between Shenzhen, Ho Chi Minh City, and Bangalore. That's three different settlement currencies (CNY, VND, INR), three different banking rail preferences, and three different regulatory environments for sanctions screening.

This is where businesses quietly bleed money. Not from the tariff itself — but from the FX conversion friction every time goods cross a new border. The importers who are adapting fastest aren't just diversifying their suppliers. They're diversifying their payment infrastructure — using local receivable accounts in multiple currencies so they can settle in-country via domestic rails rather than paying SWIFT correspondent banking fees on every single transaction. The geography of trade has changed. The geography of how you pay needs to change with it.

3. Ocean Freight Is Cheap Right Now — But Don't Confuse Price With Reliability

The Drewry World Container Index sits at approximately $1,927 per 40-foot container globally, with Asia-US West Coast rates around $2,127 and Asia-North Europe at $2,707. These are dramatically lower than the $9,000+ peaks of early 2025. Spot rates on the Asia-US West Coast lane have fallen below carrier break-even levels.

But here's what the headline rate doesn't tell you: carriers are managing capacity more aggressively than at any point since the pandemic. C.H. Robinson's February market update describes "selective blank sailings, tighter space allocation, and targeted deployment adjustments" across all major east-west routes. Blank sailings on Asia-Europe routes account for 35% of the global total. Post-Lunar New Year factory slowdowns have compounded the capacity squeeze. And the potential reopening of the Suez Canal — where some Indian subcontinent services have already resumed transiting — could cause significant congestion at European hub ports if carriers shift back from the Cape of Good Hope route simultaneously.

What this means for your business: Low freight rates are a gift — but they come with schedule unreliability that creates hidden costs. When your container arrives three days late because of a blank sailing or port congestion, you're paying demurrage. When your goods sit at a transshipment hub in Singapore for seven to eight days of additional dwell time (as Vizion's tracking data currently shows), you've lost a week of working capital. And when your payment to the supplier was already wired via SWIFT three days before the goods cleared customs — because your bank's settlement window forced your hand — you've effectively pre-funded inventory you can't yet sell.

The CFOs who navigate this well are the ones who treat freight cost and payment timing as a single equation. Cheaper shipping means nothing if your capital is trapped in transit because your payment infrastructure can't match the tempo of your logistics. Same-day settlement into local accounts gives you the ability to hold capital until the goods actually arrive — and that flexibility is worth more than any freight rate reduction.

4. Air Cargo Is Booming Again — And It's Changing Who Competes With Whom

Global air cargo volumes have rebounded sharply, driven by two forces: the explosion of cross-border e-commerce (particularly from China to Europe and the US) and the shift of high-value, time-sensitive goods away from unreliable ocean schedules. IATA projected over 5% volume growth for 2025, and early 2026 data suggests that pace is holding. Rates have remained remarkably stable despite volume swings, as carriers rapidly redeploy capacity between routes — a structural shift from the pre-pandemic rigidity of the air freight market.

This isn't just an air freight story. It's a competitive strategy story. Businesses that previously couldn't justify air freight are now doing partial air shipments on their fastest-moving SKUs while shipping the bulk by sea. The tipping point isn't the freight rate alone — it's the total cost of inventory holding versus speed to market.

What this means for your business: When you split a shipment between air and ocean, you're also splitting your payment obligations. The air-freighted goods arrive in days; the sea-freighted goods arrive in weeks. If your supplier expects full payment on shipment — which many do — you're funding the entire order upfront but only realising revenue on the air portion immediately.

This is where treasury management becomes a competitive weapon, not just an accounting function. The businesses pulling ahead are the ones negotiating staggered payment terms — paying a portion on air shipment proof of delivery and the balance on ocean arrival — and using their FX provider to execute each tranche at the optimal moment rather than converting everything in one lump sum at whatever rate their bank offers that morning. Every shipment split is an opportunity to optimise both logistics and cash flow. Most businesses only optimise the first half.

5. Energy Trade Is Quietly Repricing Everything You Import

Ongoing sanctions dynamics have created a two-tier global energy market. Russian crude continues flowing to India and China at discounted prices, while European and North American buyers pay market rate for alternatives. The result is a structural cost advantage for manufacturers in India and parts of Asia — and a structural disadvantage for European producers — that feeds directly into the input costs of everything from steel to textiles to chemicals.

This isn't temporary. It's a persistent cost asymmetry that affects the competitiveness of different sourcing markets. Meanwhile, bunker fuel costs — the fuel that powers the container ships carrying your goods — fluctuate with global crude prices and add a variable layer to every freight invoice. Currency movements compound the effect: if you're paying suppliers in rupees while the INR weakens against sterling, the energy cost advantage India holds may not fully translate into lower prices at your end.

What this means for your business: Too many importers treat their cost of goods as a fixed number on a supplier invoice and their FX conversion as an afterthought. In reality, the price you pay in your home currency is a function of at least four moving variables: the supplier's production cost (which includes their energy input cost), the freight rate, the exchange rate at the moment of conversion, and the spread your bank or FX provider charges on top.

The businesses that maintain the healthiest margins don't manage these in isolation. They model their landed cost dynamically — adjusting sourcing decisions when energy-driven input costs shift, locking forward rates when currency moves threaten to erode a supplier's price advantage, and settling through local accounts in the supplier's currency to avoid double-conversion fees. Energy prices don't just affect petrol stations. They affect every cross-border invoice you pay.

The Thread That Runs Through All Five Stories

There's a single truth connecting everything above: the cost of moving goods and money across borders is increasingly determined not by the headline price of any one element — the interest rate, the tariff, the freight rate, the energy price — but by how well your business orchestrates all of them together. The businesses that bleed margin are the ones managing each variable in a silo. The businesses that compound margin are the ones treating FX, logistics, compliance, and treasury as a single integrated system.

That's not a technology pitch. It's an observation from watching thousands of cross-border transactions. The winners aren't the biggest companies. They're the most coordinated.

Trade Wire is published by Unicorn Currencies — cross-border payments and FX for importers, exporters, and the businesses that move physical goods around the world.

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