Augustus Doricko on Rain Maker and weather modification as critical infrastructure for American agriculture

there's obviously just been a constant rumor mill rumors moving the market trillions of dollars uh you know in seconds but is there any sense of optimism on the ground with on the with the politicians that you've been seeing this week?

Um I I've there's let's just say uh there's a sentiment that tariffs the tariff with China at 145 is not sustainable. It's not where they meant to be, not where they want to be, that it will come down, but there needs to be renegotiation around that. Unclear to me what they think the triggers are.

So therefore, the timeline for when it would come down or what it comes down to because on the day of the reciprocal tariffs on April 2nd when it was announced that China was at 54%. And that was already a shocker.

like that was the top of the list and the worst in the kind of that's going to and that's on top of the prior Trump administration oil% you mentioned Venezuela. So like now that seems quaint and you're like oh let's get to 54 while but 54 was also really bad for companies.

So if we play this out and there does wind up being a re-industrialization more American manufacturing maybe it's an automated facilities uh what does the future of flexport and logistics look like? Is it more trucks and trains and automated trucking? What are you thinking about in like 5 10 years?

Uh just to power a more efficient logistics system in the domestic lower 48. Oh, in domestic side, yeah, I mean we we acquired Convoy. Sure. Uh so we have a truckload business. We do about 200,000 truckloads a year. Uh that is 98% automated. It's amazing tech. 98% of the loads, nobody does anything on the inside.

2% need to have an exception managed. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so that is probably going to Yeah. scale that thing like crazy. But by the way, the truckload business, if the tariffs keep going where they are, that's going to collapse, too. I mean, Yeah. Yeah. What are you trucking? You're trucking stuff that came off a boat.

Yeah, exactly. Um, and they're not This idea that it's going to like lead to this manufacturing boom is kind of fake.

Like, you know, I heard from a senator yesterday that said they do a lot of they have a lot of um auto manufacturing in their state that all the auto manufacturers have told them that if they don't get an exemption on parts, they're going to go under. Well, they got an exemption on parts this morning. Okay.

Or yesterday. So, hopefully these feedback loops are working and we don't just like kill I knew that was going to happen because you're like they're not going to let all the auto manufacturers like obviously. Yeah.

No, it's a tough I mean it's a bad situation that if you have your you know team in Washington you can get get stuff done and if and if you're you know even if you employ 100 people you can't it's hard to get your that you're still a tiny business in the eyes of everyone else.

I mean, we were talking Sean Sean Frank had an interesting uh kind of uh policy, you know, recommendation or idea which was like basically take what I would have to pay in tariffs and make me invest it here in the US so I can basically buy some time.

Don't just come down with a you know just absolute hammer because I can't it's like I can't set up a factory in three months even if I wanted to spend you know a billion dollars, right? Yeah. They announced today that they would do um the allow you to expense 100% of capex if you're building a factory.

This could be really big like first year straight line depreciate the entire amount of the build out. Um so you know more policies like that might industrialization. Can you uh paint me a picture of who the who the major power players are in DC? Are there trade organizations that are doing stuff here?

We've seen some of the different uh like the long shoreman's union. Are they do they have a view on this? Are there different organizations and and leaders who are uh championing the the these causes? I mean business. Yeah.

It seems like you are honestly one of the champions of like the e-commerce community trying to do that on behalf of our customers. Yeah. your customers, but are there other more official organizations? I'm sure there are. NRF, National Retail Federation is typically the the main channel for this.

There's a few others I'm not that familiar with. Sure. The big CEOs are going direct. I mean, you've seen they said like they were at the White House. Yeah. Um the but yeah, not really much of a voice for small business out there. Uh so we're trying to do that. Um I'm sure there's all kinds of lobbyists.

You you mentioned the long shoreman. So the ILW is the West Coast Sports Union. They came out opposed the tariffs last week. ILA endorsed Trump and they have not come out against this yet. ILA is the East and G Coast Sports Union, the ones that went on strike last September. But but much less affected. The guy will you.

Yeah. But isn't there aren't they much less affected because it's not trade with with a lot of trade? Uh no, a lot of um a lot of the East Coast trade comes through the Panama Canal or through the It used to be through the Suez but around the Cape of Africa right now. Um, so yeah, I mean they got to be opposed to this.

It's bad for their business, but Trump, you know, helped them. Is the talk around the Panama Canal beneficial to trade long term if that happens? Whatever Trump was talking about like taking more control there, not letting China grab it.

That is so uh it felt like it kind of fell out of the news because the tariffs are so much. The crazy thing about Trump is that a lot of these stories of things that he's done or said or actions would be like the story of the year for like a normal president 20 current things at once. Yep. Um the media can't keep up.

Certainly the Democrats definitely can't keep up. None of us can keep up. It's wild. So the Panama one um was they're trying to get them to the the two port the ports on either end. It's not the canal itself, but the ports on either end owned by Lie Kashing. Sure. Hong Kong based billionaire, richest man in Hong Kong.

Uh he went to sell it. The Chinese blocked the sale. Interesting. um which I think I've seen that the Trump administration argued that the very act of the Chinese being able to block the sale is a potential violation of the treaty by which the US handed over the canal zone to Panama.

Okay, now they're threatening maybe we'll invade Panama again and take it over. I don't think anyone anyone wants to see that happen. Okay, that's interesting. It doesn't I don't think from an efficiency standard that's relevant. I I'm sure there's national security stuff's going through.

Uh what what have you heard about uh even I saw a story about iPhone suppliers not being able to get equipment out of China. Did you see anything about that? Oh, is that even is that is that not even surprising? I didn't follow it very closely. I I'm not sure. Yeah.

No, just kind of an you know uh there there's there's you know the idea that we're we would decouple even the iPhone supply chain from China without sort of inward pressure from China.

things I heard here in DC is that they like senior people who shall not be named have said that 145% is a decoupling rate if they understand that