Port of Los Angeles Sees Drop in Cargo Ship Arrivals

Tariff effects loom over California’s ports as an anticipated decline in cargo volume and ship cancellations begins to appear.

Shipping containers line the Port of Los Angeles on March 28, 2025. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

The Port of Los Angeles, the nation’s busiest container port, is expecting a decline in container shipments compared with last year, and the data is beginning to reflect that. Experts are concerned about potential layoffs as a result.

According to Capt. Kit Louttit, executive director of the Marine Exchange of Southern California, which keeps records of ships arriving and departing throughout the region, 22 ships arrived at the neighboring Los Angeles and Long Beach ports during the first five days of May, while 28.5 arrivals would be considered typical. Only nine are scheduled to arrive in the next three days, whereas 17 in three days would be normal.

“If vessel arrivals go down, the ports, marine transportation system, and land-based (trucks and trains) transportation system will have excess capacity, which could put businesses and people out of work,” Louttit told The Epoch Times in an email on May 6.

Data show that the number of ships headed to the ports averaged 58.9 per day in January and 54.8 in April. On May 6, that number had fallen to 41.

Robert Taylor, the president and COO of Taylor Machine Works, a manufacturer of port equipment, acknowledged the uncertainty and said that U.S. tariffs are high on the company’s agenda at present. In an interview with Port of Long Beach CEO Mario Cordero, Taylor said that the Trump administration likely has legitimate concerns and that his company would take a step back and let tariffs run their course.

Cordero took a similar approach.

“I tend to be positive that at some point we’re going to have a surge of imports again, once the parties—the main parties being the U.S. and China—have a meeting of the minds,” he said.

Taylor says that for now, the overall impact of the tariffs, both on imports and exports, remains a mystery.

“We run all the scenarios, and we are still waiting with bated breath to see, because even though we’re a U.S. manufacturer, we have axles that are made in Europe. We have transmissions that are made in Europe, engines that are made in Europe. So it will have a definite impact on us, if there’s not some deals made.” He emphasized the company is counting on deals being made,” Taylor said.

Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, has been sounding the alarm about the pending decline, which he attributes to tariffs. Seroka said he does not anticipate mass layoffs.

“It’s my prediction that in two weeks’ time, arrivals will drop by 35 percent as essentially all shipments out of China for major retailers and manufacturers have ceased, and cargo coming out of Southeast Asia locations is much softer than normal,” Seroka said during a Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners meeting on April 24.

March 2025 data began to reveal signs of a slowdown as loaded exports declined by 15 percent from 2024. Loaded imports grew by just 1.6 percent over last year.

“Many importers have already brought their goods in early, and as prices begin to rise, consumers will think twice about many purchases,” Seroka said in an April 11 statement.

Seroka said at the time that total cargo could decline by at least 10 percent in the second half of 2025 because of tariff-related issues.

He said trade volume from China will probably stay light so long as the tariffs remain in effect.

In April, a Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation report conjectured that the tariffs could “significantly reduce port activities, resulting in negative economic and employment impacts.”

The National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates’ Global Port Tracker report from April 9 forecast a 15 percent or greater net decline in U.S. container port volume in 2025 as a result of tariffs and declining consumer demand.

President Donald Trump’s tariffs aim to close trade deficits, encourage the reshoring of U.S. production, and fund tax cuts.