This is CBS I in the world. I'm John Bachelor. Merck, the big shipper, the one with the container ships that bring lots of holiday gifts.

Putting an announcement on these last days, Merce says companies are bringing orders

forward on US-China war threat, trade war threat.

Important to underline that.

There's war threat elsewhere where China and the US are involved.

But this is about a trade war.

In the event of a Trump victory, it does not speak to a Harris victory.

We can presume, however, the Biden administration is not unsympathetic to the need for tariffs and a trade war with China, especially

on the high end.

This is the scholar report. I welcome Chris Regal, the CEO of scholar.com, a global technology firm to help me interpret

MERSk putting out this announcement of orders brought forward. You will recall

during the pandemic, Chris was very helpful to flag containerships as a tell

of where the economy in the US and in China and in Europe was heading. Right now there's been reason to believe these last days

that Mersk is doing very well because of the Red Sea bottleneck and

because Mersh shipping are vital to all the continents.

However, this one is about the trade war possible.

Chris, a very good evening to you.

A trade war between the U.S. and China helps no one and Merck is pointing to it.

What would it mean immediately for the US in the event of a Trump victory?

Would it mean that our prices go up? Would it mean that there was a recession imminent?

How would it translate? Good evening to you.

Good evening, John. In fact, and in reality, we've been in a trade war with the Chinese with tariffs since the Trump administration

...