Signs of a cargo slowdown are evident at the Port of Los Angeles, its chief said on Thursday, April 24, projecting there could be as much as a 35% drop that will be seen in about two weeks.
Impacts from the tariffs are taking a toll, especially on goods from China and elsewhere in Asia, with the ricocheting messages emanating from the White House also bringing added confusion, Port of L.A. Executive Director Gene Seroka said during the Los Angeles harbor commission meeting.
“The news changes almost hourly,” Seroka said.
The warnings came on the heels of what has been continued cargo growth in the past several months as importers rushed to beat the anticipated tariffs threatened by the Trump administration.
Currently, Seroka said, retailers have about a six- to eight-week supply of goods on hand “but that will quickly dry up” and consumers will begin to see those changes on store shelves along with shrinking buying options.
Right now, Seroka said, many large importers have “hit the pause button on cargo from China” as they are not willing pay the excess amounts on products.
The tariffs will also impact port jobs, he said. While not anticipating mass layoffs, he said, longshore work will feel a hit, especially casuals — part-time dockworkers — who rely on picking up available jobs daily at the hiring halls.
But the port, Seroka said, will continue to chase every bit of cargo it can in the meantime to keep shipping volumes up.
Cargo volumes — in part due to front-loading that anticipated the coming tariffs — have seen spikes and surges throughout 2024 and into 2025.
The month of March, Seroka said, continued the port’s trend of year-on-year growth for 18 of the past 20 months.
“The volume surge that we’ve been witnessing over last summer has in large part been due to businesses trying to advance inventory as a hedge,” Seroka said. “Against these now-announced tariffs and the skyrocketing prices for overseas cargo, we are beginning to see the flow of cargo to the port of Los Angeles slow.
“It’s my prediction that in two weeks time, arrivals will drop by 35% as essentially all shipments out of China for major retailers and manufacturers has ceased,” Seroka added. “And cargo coming out of Southeast Asia locations is much softer than normal.”
Imports from China, Seroka said, “currently stand with a 145% tariff. That simply means that if you’re buying a product from China, it costs 2.5 times more than it did last month.”
On April 9, meanwhile, tariffs on countries — except for Canada, Mexico and China were — were reduced back to 10%, with a 90-day pause.
But that wasn’t much of a help, Seroka said.
“That’s not a lot of lead time for the industry to make decisions on procurement, manufacturing locations or sourcing,” he said. “Typically, retailers and manufacturers alike put in their orders to factories in Asia some three or four months in advance of shipments leaving via vessel.”
And then there are the retaliatory tariffs.
“These are hitting American businesses hard, particularly agriculture, heavy duty manufacturing, and the information technology and services sectors,” Seroka said. “U.S. (agriculture) exporters are having an especially challenging time, so much so that in March, China bought more soybeans from Brazil in one month than ever in their history.”
Seroka had some encouraging words, however, with reminders that the port has seen hard times in the past and has planned ahead.
“I know all this seems bleak,” he said. “But the Port of Los Angeles has been here before and we’ve been doing this for 117 years.
“There are budget cycles, there are election cycles, and there are economic cycles,” Seroka added, “and we’ll make it through this.”
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“We’ll be ready to catch that cargo as it starts coming our way in even higher volumes,” he said. “But for now, it’s encouraging folks in all segments of the supply chain, policy-making and elected leadership to get to the work of concluding what is necessary for business certainty and international trade.”
The Port of Long Beach also has reported anticipating drops in cargo coming shortly in televised interviews.
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