{"id":350078,"date":"2026-07-23T16:58:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T16:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/350078\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T16:58:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T16:58:07","slug":"this-week-in-jacksonville-business-edition-37","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/350078\/","title":{"rendered":"This Week in Jacksonville: Business Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 If it feels like the global supply chain has been lurching from one disruption to the next, JAXPORT\u2019s top commercial executive says that\u2019s not your imagination \u2014 it\u2019s the new reality.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou really put your finger on something because the uncertainty has kind of become the new normal,\u201d said Robert Peek, Chief Commercial Officer at JAXPORT, during a conversation with Kent Justice on This Week in Jacksonville: Business Edition<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Peek said the difference between the pre-pandemic economy and today is the stacking of crises \u2014 not single, isolated events. \u201cYou\u2019ve not really had time to take a breath between them,\u201d he said, pointing to conflicts overseas, shifts in trade routes, tariffs, and even weather-driven chokepoints affecting the Panama Canal.<\/p>\n

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Despite that turbulence, Peek said JAXPORT\u2019s approach is to keep investing for the long haul rather than reacting to short-term headlines.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we think is we have to play the long game and that is: continue to make investments and find opportunities that make sense for the long term,\u201d Peek said.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest game changers for Jacksonville: a deeper shipping channel. \u201cThe big difference we have now that we didn\u2019t then is our deeper shipping channel,\u201d Peek said. JAXPORT\u2019s main channel is now 47 feet deep \u2014 up from 40 feet \u2014 which he said helps Jacksonville compete for larger vessels.<\/p>\n

Peek also emphasized that JAXPORT\u2019s growth strategy is built on diversification \u2014 both in the types of cargo handled and the parts of the world it trades with.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way we look at things is we want to be very diversified\u2026 and that means diversified in the kinds of cargoes we handle and also where we trade,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

And he pushed back on the idea that ports only matter to massive corporations. Peek said small businesses can benefit too \u2014 even those that only ship a few containers a year. He highlighted a new export training effort with the Florida Small Business Development Center designed to help local entrepreneurs navigate the harder parts of exporting, from pricing to legal and insurance questions.<\/p>\n

On tariffs, Peek said one of the clearest trends is a gradual shift away from China in container trade data \u2014 and growth in alternatives like Vietnam.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, Peek said he\u2019s watching the fundamentals: inflation, interest rates, and consumer confidence \u2014 the drivers that ultimately determine demand for the goods that move through ports.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 If it feels like the global supply chain has been lurching from one disruption to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7364,116,118,117,7363],"class_list":["post-350078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-business-edition","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-this-week-in-jacksonville"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}