California ports see new wave of freight containers as ships try to beat China tariff hike

A caller question of water freight from China is opening to get astatine the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach, an accrued travel of shipping containers aiming to bushed imaginable tariff increases. President Trump imposed a deadline of August 12 for the U.S. and China to hold to a commercialized deal.

In caller days, the vas tracking work managed by the Marine Exchange of Southern California and Coast Guard showed an uptick successful vessel arrivals: Friday (64), Saturday (68), and Sunday (64).

"This is simply a beauteous coagulated forecast of an summation successful instrumentality vessel arrivals successful the adjacent 1 to 2 weeks," said Captain J. Kipling (Kip) Louttit, enforcement manager of MX SoCal. He said it is the highest fig of instrumentality ships connected the mode to the nation's busiest ports since January 2025 (previous highs were successful July and September 2024).

The forecast for the coming weeks encompasses the mean of instrumentality ships coming from the acold reaches of Asia that are 16 days out, those coming from Oakland and San Diego which are 1 time out, and others connected the mode from the Panama Canal, South and Central America, Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska, with transit times successful between.

The summation successful containers was expected, and officials person stopped abbreviated of describing it arsenic a "surge." There is nary anticipation of sustained precocious levels — water freight booking orders fell aft a mates of weeks of accrued orders. There is nary anticipation of congestion astatine the West Coast ports, either, owed to caller softness successful instrumentality traffic. The commercialized warfare has led galore U.S. importers to spot a intermission connected orders, and vessels arriving into the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach earlier the caller question person not been full.

The terminals astatine the Port of Long Beach are operating astatine astir 60 percent of capacity. Mario Cordero, CEO of the Port of Long Beach, tells CNBC the larboard is good prepared to grip the expected uptick successful vas postulation implicit the adjacent respective weeks and beyond.

Canceled sailings astatine Long Beach — galore shippers cancelled planned freight vas voyages earlier this twelvemonth during the archetypal stages of Trump's commercialized warfare — are trending down, from an expected 18 successful June to lone 4 for July and August combined, Cordero said.

"We've been coordinating intimately with terminal operators, labor, and our different partners to guarantee they person what they request arsenic we look guardant to accrued cargo flow. We invited the further cargo and look guardant to a solution of the commercialized argumentation issues that person led to truthful overmuch uncertainty for shippers," helium added.

The terminals astatine the Port of Los Angeles are operating astatine 70% of capacity. Gene Seroka, enforcement manager for the Port of Los Angeles, noted successful its monthly instrumentality update that the larboard would spot immoderate signs of highest play orders successful the period of July arrivals. But helium added, "retailers are not telling maine that they're boosting inventory levels to person wide selections connected products opening that Thanksgiving week and moving to the extremity of the year. So I'm not seeing that either."

The terminals astatine the Port of Los Angeles are operating astatine little than 30% of the cargo connected the docks contiguous than astatine the highest during Covid. "We've got plentifulness of country to negociate the cargo," Seroka said successful the update.

Vessels present arriving are anticipated to beryllium full. This summation successful containers volition beryllium a boost for trucking, railroads and warehouse companies who get paid by the freight load.

Seroka told CNBC that the uptick successful cargo successful caller weeks compared to May "has enactment much radical backmost to enactment connected our docks."

He added that the cargo travel is inactive beneath mean for the period of June, and "there are looming commercialized dialog deadlines successful July and August that volition interaction measurement forecasts for the remainder of the year."