Global trade remains ‘alive and well’ despite tariffs and war, says DHL boss

From conflict in the Middle East to shifting tariffs and rising concern over Britain’s supply chain resilience, businesses are facing an increasingly unpredictable trading environment. But according to DHL Supply Chain chief executive Hendrik Venter, global trade is adapting rather than retreating.

For anyone responsible for moving goods around the world, the past few years have offered little respite. The Covid pandemic exposed just how fragile global supply chains could be. Since then, businesses have had to contend with war in Ukraine, escalating tensions in the Middle East, rising energy costs, disrupted shipping routes and an increasingly uncertain trading environment shaped by tariffs and geopolitical rivalries.

It is a backdrop that has prompted repeated warnings about the end of globalisation and a shift towards more localised trade.

But Hendrik Venter, who took over as chief executive of DHL Supply Chain last year, says those predictions are overstated: “We’ve come to live with volatility,” he told City AM.

“If we look back a little bit, it feels like since Covid that was really where things changed. Coming out of Covid, we went into the conflicts, the Ukrainian war, which is now four years going. I think we’ve come to live with volatility and I don’t think it’s going to go away.”

That does not mean businesses are pulling back from international trade. If anything, Venter argues, they are becoming more sophisticated in how they manage it.

“Global trade is alive and well,” he added. “I don’t think people or companies are retracting from global trade”.

Instead, companies are reassessing where they source goods, where they store them and how exposed they are to disruptions when the unexpected happens.

What was once seen as an operational issue is now increasingly discussed in the boardroom.

“Supply chains are now becoming real boardroom discussions,” Venter said. “It’s not a function managed far away anymore. Companies are looking at how well their supply chains perform under pressure, understanding where the bottlenecks and breaking points are, and then making decisions about where they source, where they store and where demand actually sits.”

A recent report from the National Preparedness Commission warned Britain remains vulnerable to major supply chain shocks, arguing ministers should do more to prepare for everything from future pandemics to the possibility of wider geopolitical conflict.

And at the same time, ongoing instability in the Middle East has raised fresh concerns over critical trade routes and energy supplies.

DHL, which operates around 3,200 warehouses globally and manages 55 million square metres of warehousing space, has already been feeling those disruptions.

The conflict around the Strait of Hormuz has increased pressure on shipping routes, while airspace closures have created capacity constraints for freight operators.

Combined with higher fuel prices, it has made moving goods around the world more complicated and more expensive.

“It is a bit of a perfect storm at the moment,” Venter said. “You’ve got elevated energy costs, fuel prices increasing, you’ve got capacity challenges and you’ve got increasing demand.”

The response, however, has not been to abandon global supply chains but to find alternative routes. DHL has increasingly been using different ports and combining sea, air and road transport to keep goods moving when traditional routes become disrupted.

“We have the ability to quickly activate our ground fleet, use different ports and then truck it,” he said. “The challenge is it’s not long-term and it’s not sustainable because it is more expensive and it is a longer supply route.”

Yet despite the disruption, Venter sees little evidence that companies are retreating from global commerce.

“We’re definitely seeing that companies are re-routing their supplies, they’re diversifying and they’re forming new alliances,” he argued. “The US-China lane, which is disrupted, we’re just seeing that flow of goods now in other directions.”

AI’s infrastructure boom

If geopolitical instability is one side of the 2026 supply chain story, the rapid buildout of AI infrastructure is the other.

Data centres require huge amounts of equipment, from cooling systems and power supplies to server racks, cabling and specialist components – and all of it needs to be transported and delivered.

“It’s an incredibly exciting sector,” he said. Indeed, DHL recently announced it had added more than 700,000 square metres of warehousing linked to data centre projects within the space of a year, reflecting the scale of investment flowing into AI infrastructure.

“What the hyperscalers are interested in is having a single provider end-to-end,” Venter said. “The more handover points you have in your supply chain, the more vulnerable it becomes.”

According to Venter, AI-related products accounted for 41 per cent of global growth during the first three quarters of 2025.

And the technology is also transforming DHL’s own operations. The company launched 665 analytics and AI projects last year and now has around 8,500 robots working across its warehouses.

Yet Venter is sceptical of suggestions that automation will inevitably lead to widespread job losses: “We have 8,500 robots deployed across our businesses and we still increased our headcount.”

DHL Supply Chain employs around 184,000 people globally, including more than 30,000 in the UK, and Venter expects people to remain central to the business even as technology becomes more capable.

“We’re focusing on building a hybrid workforce,” he said. “AI augments our people and enhances their productivity.”