Ahead of Black Friday, the Port of Los Angeles has been receiving an abnormal surge of shipments earlier than usual. This is most likely due to businesses and retailers front-loading orders in an attempt to avoid new planned tariffs. While Trump has stated that he has postponed issuing certain tariffs until after the holidays many of these shipments were likely put into place before that announcement. These rushed orders have caused the port's busy season to come nearly a month earlier than usual. Despite Trump's freeze on some tariffs until January other 15% tariffs will go into effect on September 1st. Since the beginning of the year, our trade with China has drastically decreased. Exports to China fell by 18% and imports fell by 12%. Despite the tariffs, the port does not expect business to slow significantly as other Asian countries have been picking up the slack such as Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore, Japan, and Vietnam.
Article: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/31/port-of-los-angeles-slammed-with-cargo-as-companies-rush-to-get-imports-in-ahead-of-tariffs.html
According to the article 98% of Chinese goods imported through LA will be negatively affected by new tariffs. The anticipation for additional tariffs lead to the large increase in shipments, but the issue arising is open warehouse storage is down to 1.7%. On top of this low number, the number of empty containers leaving the port is up 21% leaving the question of can the port sustain increased shipping to avoid the new tariffs.
ReplyDeleteThis article makes me wonder about how the tariff will impact employment in the all the large shipping cities in the United States. With declining trade with China, will many people lose jobs in LA if imports drop by 15%?
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