DHL Could Benefit from Trump’s Trade War and Tariffs, Says CEO
The logistics giant DHL could potentially benefit from the trade war and tariffs introduced by US President Donald Trump, according to the company’s CEO. Tobias Meyer, the head of DHL since two years, told the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” (Monday edition) that the high tariffs between the US and China could bring additional business to the Bonn-based DAX member: “Companies are restructuring their supply chains, which leads to more transportation in some cases” said the 49-year-old. “Additionally, DHL’s market share on the China-US route is small compared to our share on other routes. If other routes gain importance at the expense of China-US trade, that is good for DHL.”
Meyer also pointed out that the company – the parent company of Deutsche Post – benefits from customs bureaucracy: “More customs clearance means more work for service providers like us. We bill the work.”
Meyer also spoke about his plan to make the company with worldwide 602,000 employees more climate-friendly. By 2030, almost a third of the fuel used by DHL’s transport aircraft is expected to come from sustainable production, not based on crude oil. However, he warned that the production capacities for sustainable fuels are not growing fast enough: “That worries us.”
From the new federal government, Meyer wishes for bureaucracy reduction, for example in the approval of construction projects: Due to the many complicated rules, some municipalities are now “completely overwhelmed with the task of finalizing a planning approval process” he complained in the interview. “Larger municipalities may still manage it, but they do not have enough capacity, so everything takes forever. The appeal rights for citizens also lead to the fact that procedures drag on for a long time.” Meyer said to the SZ that it is better to “intensively examine a project, but decide quickly. Then, maybe one side is not satisfied, but life goes on.