U.S. companies rushed in imports at Port of Los Angeles to avoid tariff deadline, now pushed back

The July container volumes for the Port of Los Angeles tell the tale of the Trump tariff impacts.

The frontloading of Chinese goods ahead of the tariff deadline pushed container volumes the Port of Los Angeles to levels it has never seen in its 117-year history. The port processed 1,019,837 twenty-foot equivalent units, or TEUs, in July. Imports came in at 543,728,000 TEUs, also a record.

“Shippers have been frontloading their cargo for months to get ahead of tariffs and recent activity at America’s top port really tells that story,” said Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka. “Port terminals in July were jam-packed with ships loaded with cargo — processed without any delay, much to the credit of our dedicated longshore workers, terminal and rail operators, truckers and supply chain partners.”

But the level of tariff, at a minimum of 30%, didn’t allow companies to import in full orders, according to Mike Short, president of global forwarding at C.H. Robinson.

“This year’s peak season started about two to three months earlier than normal,” said Short. “We started to see it slow down a month or two before it would normally end, which just started.”