On July 6, 2018 after months of threats, the United States began to collect a 25% tariff on $34 billion worth of imported Chinese goods. Today, that number has reached $250 billion with the US-China Trade War showing no sign of being resolved in the near future.

Amazon has been quietly gearing up to make a play in the “last-mile” delivery space. Previously, the e-commerce giant relied heavily on the United States Postal Service (USPS), United Parcel Service (UPS), and FedEx for delivery.  As their needs grow, Amazon has begun to test the waters as to what local delivery would mean for the company. So much so that they have recently announced that they will be hiring Amazon Delivery Service Partners (DSP) to meet their demands.

It was the break up heard all over the Supply Chain community. FedEx Express and Amazon have officially called it quits when it comes to U.S. domestic deliveries. The news was confirmed when FedEx decided not to renew their express shipping service contract with the e-commerce giant which is set to expire on June 30th. Amazon responded by diplomatically explaining to The Verge, ““We respect FedEx’s decision and thank them for their role serving Amazon customers over the years.” Express shipping tends to be the fastest way a package gets from point A to point B. Examples of express shipping includes same day, overnight, and next day shipping.