President Trump’s ambitious plans to reverse decades of maritime-industry decline are stumbling out of the gate. The WSJ Logistics Report’s Paul Berger writes that setbacks include the pause of food-aid programs that support American carriers, staff cuts at the new office coordinating the U.S. maritime revival and concerns over proposed spending on military shipbuilding.

Industry executives say they don’t doubt the president’s desire to expand the maritime industrial base, with some saying the hitches are unintended consequences of competing agendas. To counter China’s maritime dominance, both parties want to build more warships and boost the fleet of U.S.-flagged commercial ships.

Some industry officials warn they will have to start laying up ships and laying off seafarers if the USAID Food for Peace program, which an administration official called wasteful, isn’t resurrected elsewhere. A GOP senator has voiced disappointment in the proposed Navy shipbuilding budget and the size of the procurement of destroyers. Maritime specialists also are concerned about cuts at the National Security Council that reduced the new Office of Shipbuilding's staffing to two from seven. The administration official said the NSC “right-sizing” was making processes more efficient.

Note to readers: The WSJ Logistics Report will not be published on Friday due to the Fourth of July holiday. We will resume publication on Monday.

American goods will enter Vietnam duty-free, while the U.S. will charge 20% tariffs on products from the Southeast Asian nation under a trade deal Trump announced Wednesday. The Wall Street Journal’s Gavin Bade writes that the agreement—the second after a pact with the U.K.—brings the duties on Vietnamese goods down from the 46% announced in April, before the tariffs were paused for talks. Products from other countries that pass through Vietnam on their way to the U.S. will be charged a higher 40% tariff. Addressing the transshipment of goods—particularly those originating from China—was a priority for the U.S. Vietnam is the U.S.’s eighth-largest trading partner, with nearly $150 billion in two-way trade in goods in 2024. But it accounts for the U.S.’s third-largest trade deficit—more than $123 billion last year.

• The GOP’s big tax-and-spending bill includes a provision to end the de minimis rule that currently allows packages worth $800 or less to be imported duty-free from countries other than China and Hong Kong. (WSJ)
• Cleveland-Cliffs' CEO said a new stainless-steel processing line in Ohio is replacing steel imported from Finland now saddled with a 50% U.S. tariff. (WSJ)
• Modelo brewer Constellation Brands expects Trump’s new tariffs to increase its costs by $20 million this fiscal year. (WSJ)
• Germany’s Continental expects a limited hit from U.S. tariffs on auto parts because a high share of its imports comply with the USMCA trade agreement. (WSJ)

A robot-making startup called Dexterity says it isn’t trying to replace people, but amplify them. The California-based company programs what it calls superhumanoids: large industrial robots built to do physically demanding and dangerous jobs, the WSJ's Kimberly Kao writes. Designed to operate at temperatures and altitudes unfriendly to humans, the company’s robots have drawn partnerships with FedEx and Japan’s Sumitomo, and are manufactured by industrial veterans such as Kawasaki Heavy Industries. In the recent years’ artificial-intelligence gold rush, Dexterity, founded in 2017, has raked in investment bringing it to a $1.65 billion valuation, securing it “unicorn” status. The company currently is raising funds and eventually wants to list publicly in the U.S. Profitability for Dexterity is still a few years away, the company’s CEO says, so it is prioritizing growth for now.

U.S. employers shed 33,000 workers last month, ADP data showed, an unexpectedly weak readout coming ahead of Thursday’s Labor Department nonfarm-payrolls report. (WSJ)

The eurozone’s unemployment rate inched higher to 6.3% in May from April’s 6.2%. (WSJ)

Tesla’s global vehicle sales fell 13.5% to 384,122 in the second quarter from a year earlier, continuing a steep slide as the company tries to pivot to autonomous vehicles. (WSJ)

EV company Lucid Group delivered 3,309 vehicles in the second quarter, 38% more than a year earlier. (WSJ)

Microsoft plans to cut an additional 9,000 workers in its latest round of layoffs, bringing its workforce reductions to 15,000 in the past two months. (WSJ)

Packaged-foods maker Del Monte Foods, a U.S. unit of Singapore’s Del Monte Pacific, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection with plans to pursue a sale. (WSJ)

China’s Alibaba Group will offer about $6.98 billion in coupons and vouchers over the next year to draw more business to its domestic delivery and e-commerce services. (WSJ)

Swiss carbon-removal startup Climeworks, which has been backed by Microsoft, BCG and Morgan Stanley, has raised more than $1 billion in total equity. (WSJ)

Houston’s Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners is shuffling its leadership as it expands and focuses on a critical-minerals supply chain strategy. (WSJ)

DHL Group’s air and ocean freight unit, DHL Global Forwarding, named Michael Young as CEO for the U.S., starting Aug. 1. (American Journal of Transportation)

Ocean carriers are dropping proposed surcharges on eastbound trans-Pacific routes as extra capacity rushed to serve the trade in April and May is no longer needed, sending rates down. (Journal of Commerce)

Four crew members were killed after a jackup barge owned by Saudi Arabia’s ADES that was under tow capsized off the Egyptian coast. (Splash 247)

China’s BYD shelved plans to build an EV plant in Mexico amid uncertainty over Trump’s trade policies. (Bloomberg)

A Mediterranean Shipping containership that ran aground in May is now the first MSC-operated ship in 18 months to transit the Bab el Mandeb, the strait at the southern exit of the Red Sea. (Lloyd’s List)

Mark R. Long is editor of WSJ Logistics Report. Reach him at mark.long@wsj.com. Follow the WSJ Logistics Report team on LinkedIn: Mark R. Long, Liz Young and Paul Berger.