Los Angeles, Long Beach Ports Feel Rush of Imports With Tariffs on Horizon
The San Pedro Bay Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach keep hauling in cargo at a frenetic pace as geopolitical and labor uncertainty rages on throughout the supply chain.
The L.A. port handled 905,026 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in October, a 25 percent increase over the previous year, while the LB hub moved 987,191 TEUs in the same month, up 30.7 percent from the 2023 period.
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October represents a milestone for both ports, with Long Beach experiencing its strongest month in its 113-year history, surpassing the port’s previous all-time one-month record set two months earlier in August by 8 percent.
And for Los Angeles, the throughput marks the first time the gateway has exceeded 900,000 TEUs for four consecutive months. During the July-to-October stretch, the port outpaced total TEUs in the four-month period during the 2021 record year, as well as the same time in 2022.
Due to the expected front-loading of cargo into the ports amid the potential tariffs with the incoming Trump administration and concerns about ongoing labor negotiations at East and Gulf Coast ports, where a second strike appears very much still in play, the Los Angeles port expects November volume to come in at around 850,000 TEUs, according to executive director Gene Seroka. The anticipated container number would mark an 11.3 percent increase from the year prior.
The Port of Long Beach did not give November projections.
In perhaps a preview of what’s to come, Seroka said the first era of Trump tariffs in 2018 created a “choppy,” uneven environment that forced the port system to prepare for drastic swings in month-to-month imports.
“When we look at what happened in 2018 when the first round of policy and tariffs took hold, we saw a run-up of cargo before tariff implementation dates and then a huge drop off thereafter,” Seroka said during a Wednesday briefing. “So much so that at the end of 2019, in the fourth quarter, we saw a 16 percent drop in our business.”
In the time since the first tariffs were implemented, the L.A. port has seen its book of business with China decrease from 57 percent of cargo handled down to a current 43 percent.
Throughout 2023, The Port of Long Beach still had a much higher rate, with 70 percent of imports coming in from China, said port CEO Mario Cordero. However, he noted that the L.B. port saw a 20 percent drop in two-way trade with China in 2018 due to the tariffs.
Mary E. Lovely, a U.S.-China trade expert senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told Seroka that a new slate of tariffs would affect trade flows for both imports and exports.
“The flows will decrease despite having what I think will be a fairly robust economy next year,” said Lovely. “Simple, our imports will be taxed, consumers will turn toward domestic goods or services and alternatives. Our exports will be hurt because we’re going to see higher prices on the things that our producers use to produce in the U.S. A lot of what comes through the Port of L.A., is in fact intermediate inputs that are used by American manufacturers, and they will be hurt with this price increase.”
Lovely said U.S. manufacturers would be less competitive due to the export slowdown despite the hypothetical notion that domestic investment would increase. She also noted consumers will see higher prices, saying that they would result in a 1-percentage-point increase in the inflation rate.
As all eyes are on the upcoming presidential transition and its impact on trade policy, the twin California ports have shown to have capacity to host the expanding import totals throughout the uncertainties of the late summer and fall.
Loaded imports in October landed at 462,740 TEUs for the Los Angeles port, a 24 percent increase compared to the previous year. Exports inched up 1 percent to 122,716 TEUs.
At the Port of Long Beach, imports jumped 34.2 percent to 487,563 TEUs and exports rose 25.3 percent to 112,845 TEUs.
Both twin ports handled a significant increase of empty containers amid the flurry of cargo. The Port of Los Angeles processed 319,570 empty containers, a 38 percent jump compared to 2023. Empty containers moved through the Port of Long Beach escalated 28.1 percent to 386,782 TEUs.
The deluge of goods into the twin ports has further clogged container dwell times, which already reached a two-year high in September. Rail-destined dwell times in October rose to 9.86 days, adding an additional half-day on last month’s 9.25 days at the ports’ rail yards, according to the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association.
Truck-destined container dwell times remained at roughly the same level observed through September, slightly declining to 3.16 days at the terminals from 3.21 in the prior month.
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