Shipments from China to the United States’ West Coast will plummet by 35% within 7 days, as the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs causes companies to cut their import orders, Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on April 29.
“According to our own port optimizer, which measures the loadings in Asia, we’ll be down just a little bit over 35% next week compared to last year. And it’s a precipitous drop in volume with a number of major American retailers stopping all shipments from China based on the tariffs,” Seroka said. Appearing May 2 on Bloomberg TV’s “Surveillance” program, Seroka stated that this will have large repercussions, with the Port of Los Angeles losing 50,000 TEUs (twenty foot container units) of goods, an immense amount.
To put this into perspective, one-fifth of all seaport freight entering the United States comes through the port of Los Angeles-Long Beach. With respect to containers, the port handles 40% of all containerized freight entering the United States. In 2024, this meant 10.3 million container units entered the port. The Los Angeles-Long Beach port has 25 cargo terminals, 82 container cranes, 8 container terminals, and 113 miles of on-dock rail.
The port employs 15,000 longshoremen workers, but one report states that 230,000 jobs in the region depend on the Port of Los Angeles-Long Beach. There are tens of thousands of truck drivers. The number of jobs in the United States dependent on the port for imported goods upon which are either sold directly or on which further work is done, is approximately 1.5-2.8 million, depending on the source of information. Of all the goods passing through the port, 45% come from China.
