15 April 2025
Container throughput was up again in March, but Gene Seroka warned the industry to “buckle up, this is going to get really bumpy for us” as US trade war with China escalates.
March and April could well be the last two months of growth in container throughput the Port of Los Angeles sees in 2025. Thanks to front loading of import cargo as importers rushed to get ahead of tariffs, container throughput was up 4.7% to 778,406 TEU in March. Imports rose 1.6% to 385,531 TEU, while loaded exports dropped 15% to 122,975, the fourth straight month of decline. Empty loadings spiked 23% to 269,900.
Thanks to its Port Optimizer portal the Port of Los Angeles has insight into cargo volumes coming 40 days into the future. Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka said April is looking like another strong month, with around 800,000 TEU forecast and “a few” additional services calling at LA. Cargo volumes are expected to start to fall in May, and the drop could be significant.
Around 40% of LA’s business is import cargo from China, which, at the moment, is subject to a tariff rate of 145%. “This will more than likely increase costs for anything we buy from China by 2.5 times,” Seroka said.
Cancelling orders
At this point, Seroka estimates that throughput at LA will fall by at least 10% in the second half of 2025. This is, however, likely an underestimate if the current tariff remains in place. US media are reporting that companies including Amazon are cancelling orders for consumer goods in China. Vizon, which produces a “TradeView Global Trade Intelligence Platform” has calculated that March 2025 container bookings to the US had fallen 20% from January 2025. Seroka said he is aware that “some globally famous brands have hit the pause on shipments out of China and beyond.” At this point, the port is expecting 12 cancelled or blanked sailings in May.
US importers are in a very difficult position. It is not possible to absorb the cost of tariffs as high as 145%, and passing them on would crush demand. As the trade war rolls on “companies are making pretty tough decisions…buckle up, this is going to get really bumpy for us,” Seroka said.
Fee on Chinese-built ships on hold
The port’s guest for this month’s press briefing was Joe Kramek, President and CEO of World Shipping Council. Discussing the impact of proposed fees on container ships built in China, Kramek said the latest developments on this “seem to be encouraging”. Referring to the White House Executive Order on Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance, Kramek said the final order “softened a draft that we had seen earlier” that included the fees on Chinese-build vessels calling US ports. “Those are no longer in the White House’s Executive Order and instead it leaves the matter to USTR”.
He was also encouraged by comments made by USTR Ambassador Jamieson Greer at the House Committee hearing on Trump’s trade policy. Ambassador Greer took a conciliatory tone on the ship fee issue, saying that the USTR was looking closely at the proposal, “which tells us that perhaps they’ve listened to the over 500 commenters…with the vast majority of them opposing these proposals because of the economic harm that they would put on the US importers and exporters, and especially our farmers,” Kramek said.