October was another banner month for the Port of Los Angeles — thanks to a surge of cargo.
Port Executive Director Gene Seroka announced the October numbers on Wednesday, Nov. 20, during his monthly virtual press conference, which also covered how shippers and ports are preparing for a potential new round of tariffs coming in 2025 with the Trump administration.
POLA moved 905,026 twenty-foot equivalent units, or TEUs, in October, a 25% increase over the same month in 2023. The October numbers also marked the first time the port has exceeded 900,000 TEUs for four consecutive months.
And 10 months into 2024, the port has moved 8,491,420 TEUs, which is 19% ahead of its 2023 pace, according to port officials.
“We’re on track to hit 10 million TEUs (for 2024) for only the second time in our 116-year history,” Seroka said.
The Port of Long Beach also achieved a new milestone in October by moving nearly 1 million cargo containers — a new single-month record in that port’s 113-year history, officials said earlier this month.
Part of what’s driving the cargo crush, Seroka said, comes from shippers and others in the supply chain trying to beat whatever tariffs may be coming under President-elect Donald Trump once he takes office in January. The new administration’s promised tariffs — ranging from 40% to 60% on goods from China — “could reshape the global trade landscape,” Seroka said.
Some shippers, he said, “are front-loading as a precaution,” a big part of what is driving the high year-end cargo numbers. Seroka said he anticipates some 850,000 TEUs for November.
Other factors also pose ongoing challenges, he said, including the labor dispute at the East Coast and Gulf Coast ports, along with the ongoing issues surrounding the Red Sea and Panama Canal.
Joining Seroka for this month’s update was Mary E. Lovely of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, D.C.
Looking forward toward next year, Lovely said, much remains unpredictable.
“The three most important words are uncertainty, uncertainty and uncertainty,” she said. “And I’d add one more: disruption.”
There will likely be “a lot of headaches” for shippers, she added.
Based on Trump’s campaign promises, it appears there will be a rise in tariffs, Lovely said, but to what extent remains unclear.
Tariffs, she said, could potentially decrease imports and result in higher prices being passed on to consumers. They also can wind up reducing product choice for consumers in some areas.
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From the port’s experience with tariffs, Seroka said, at the end of 2019, “we saw a 16% drop in our (fourth quarter) business” and cargo flow became uneven, moving in “fits and starts.” That all made planning at the port and terminal levels difficult, he said.
“The supply chain (during the previous trade war) became very choppy,” Seroka said, “with big run-ups and then a pretty substantial drop-off afterward.”
By 2018, he said, the Port of L.A. had its digital tracker — the Port Optimizer — up and running, which “gave us at least a fighting chance” of being able to anticipate cargo flow and to make sure enough skilled workers were available.
“We didn’t get caught in backups but a lot more planning was needed,” Seroka said. “The impacts were real.”
In responses to other media questions, Seroka said rail cargo dwell times — the number of days unloaded cargo sits at terminals waiting to be moved out — are going down, from about 8.5 days to 6.5 days.
“There’s no reason to throw a parade for that,” he said. “We want to get that down to four days, then to two or three days.”
Still, he said, the movement is encouraging.
As for what will happen under the new administration, with the ongoing push for both the ports of L.A. and Long Beach to transition quickly to zero emissions equipment, Seroka said he sees “no evidence” that it will slow down. The ports have received hefty federal funding in recent years.
But Seroka also stressed that private sector partners will be needed as that transition continues.