As the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach this week begin to feel the impact of tariffs imposed on foreign goods by the Trump administration, a reduction in traffic and cargo was visible at the busiest ports in the U.S. on Monday.
Port officials said traffic is down nearly half at the two Southern California ports, signaling that there are fewer products now in LA from China and that there will be fewer jobs.
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WATCH HERE“We are at a point of inflection. It’s kind of dire,” Mario Cordero, port of Long Beach CEO said Monday. “What happens here is going to be an indication of what's going to occur in the supply chain. We have less vessel calls, less cargo now.”
The port of Long Beach is already reporting a huge drop in traffic this week with 34 canceled sailings from ocean carriers to Long Beach. The neighboring port of Los Angeles is also seeing 36 cancelations.
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SIGN UP Things have not been this slow since the coronavirus pandemic, Cordero said.
“Covid gave us an insight of what happens when the cargo stops. We certainly don’t want to repeat that scenario again,” he added.
The two ports, which moved 20 million containers last year, are showing a 44% drop in docked vessels in the week of May 4 compared to last year.
“Every four containers means a job, so when we start dialing back, it means less job opportunity,” Gene Seroka, port of LA CEO, told Bloomberg News Sunday, predicting a sharp decline in dock work for employees, no more overtime or double time and potentially less than 40 hours of work a week.
“Less containers, less jobs, less business for truckers,” Cordero echoed the dire projection.
Trucker drivers in Southern California expressed their concerns in case work dries up.
“It definitely brings uncertainty for everybody because we don’t know what’s going to happen, “ a driver named Helen said. “Definitely a lot of people are going to start losing their jobs. They are going to start to be laid off.”
Fewer truck drivers and dock workers mean less business for shops and stores that support them, including Berth 55, a seafood deli, nearby.
Rafeal Arias Anaya, who works at the fish market, said he is seeing fewer truckers coming in for lunch, which leads him to worry that he, too, will be forced to cut back work.
“There’s no win situation with the kind of tariffs we are seeing,” Cordero said, alerting consumers that they will soon feel the trickled-down impact soon.
“For the consumer, we are jeopardizing having products on the shelves in the next couple of months.”
Even if the Trump administration reaches a deal with China or other foreign nations, it’s still going to take about a month to get things back on track.
