Port of Los Angeles warns of falling cargo volumes as tariffs are imposed
Recently, the Port of Los Angeles (LA), a western US port, announced that after achieving record throughput in January, the cargo volume of the Port of Los Angeles remained strong in February.
Specifically, the container throughput of the Port of Los Angeles reached 801,000 TEUs in February, a year-on-year increase of 2.6%. Among them, the import heavy box increased by 1.1% year-on-year to 413,000 TEUs, and the export heavy box growth decreased by 17.8% to 109,000 TEUs. In addition, the number of empty containers passing through the Port of Los Angeles increased by 16.3% year-on-year to 279,000 TEUs.
In the first two months of 2025, the container throughput of the Port of Los Angeles reached 1.726 million TEUs, a year-on-year increase of 5.4%, which is an unusually busy start for the largest port in the United States.
Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, said at a media briefing, "In the past 19 months, the Port of Los Angeles has achieved year-on-year growth in cargo volume in 17 months, all without ship delays."
He pointed out that US President Trump's tariff war against Canada, China, Mexico and the European Union and other countries may have an impact.
He stressed that "many retailers and manufacturers are importing products through Los Angeles earlier than usual to hedge against tariffs."
"Given the large amount of inventory already here and the uncertainty of tariffs, we may see a 10% drop in freight volume in the second half of the year. The Port of Los Angeles will continue to look for new opportunities to bring more business to our gateway."
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Trump: "Reciprocal Tariffs" will be imposed on the world from April 2
On the 19th local time, US President Trump urged the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, saying that US tariffs began to affect the economy. Earlier in the day, the Federal Reserve announced that it would maintain the target range of the federal funds rate at 4.25% to 4.50%.
Trump announced on February 13 that he had decided to impose "reciprocal tariffs", that is, to make the tariff rates imposed by the United States and its trading partners equal to each other, and said that he would consider imposing tariffs on countries using the value-added tax system.
Trump said, "For the sake of fairness, I decided to impose reciprocal tariffs, which means that no matter how much tariffs other countries impose on the United States, we will also impose the same tariffs on them, no more and no less."
On March 4, Trump reiterated in a speech to a joint session of Congress that reciprocal tariffs would begin on April 2. Tariffs on agricultural products will also take effect on April 2. Trump also said that the tariffs would be "a little disruptive" but acceptable.
