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The Port of Los Angeles and their neighboring ports of Long Beach.
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Is the busiest container handling complex in the United States.
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About one third of all containerized cargo that comes into the country comes in through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
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It really is going to be ground zero for where we see the impacts of the tariffs on US trade.
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We treat the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach together as a single container complex.
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The the two ports are right next door to each other.
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And it is the biggest port in the country for one simple reason, which is that it is the closest port to China and to the rest of Asia.
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It dwarfs most other US seaports.
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On an average month between 800 to 900, sometimes more than 900,000 containers all loaded with goods coming into that port complex.
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Some of the other ports around the country like at Houston or Savannah or New York and New Jersey.
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Some of those will handle imports from Asia, but particularly on the East Coast ports, they are handling more of the cargos that are coming in from Europe.
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The ports are very, very busy right now.
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And that's because even in, you know, just post election and in the run up to President Trump's tariff announcements.
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Importers have known that there has been the possibility of tariffs coming down the road.
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And so they have been placing orders for the last six months to try to get particularly important component parts and other products in early just in case the tariffs were going to hit.
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It's a hive of activity, extremely regimented and and very busy most of the time.
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The ports themselves are very important economic generators to regional economies.
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The big fear in the logistics industry at ports, warehouses and trucking companies is that pretty soon those orders are going to start to die off.
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Because importers are going to dial back on their orders and that's going to lead to a lot less business for the ports and all of the other logistics companies that rely on it for their business.
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If there is a drop off in imports, dock workers are going to have fewer hours, they're going to lose some of their pay.
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A lot of truck drivers are are mom and pop businesses and they've had a very tough few years.
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And so you're going to see truck drivers suffer and you're also probably going to see that trickle down to other parts of the regional economy to the the diners, the cafes, the bars, the restaurants and the other service industries that basically rely on logistics sector to do well for their business.
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When you go to your local grocery store, you may see the truck in the parking lot and not give it a second thought, but that's a delivery of goods that started its life in a factory in China.
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Was loaded onto a ship and brought to the United States.
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And then maybe loaded onto a freight train and hauled halfway across the country and then delivered to the store that day.
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If the tariffs cause the economy to slow down, then that whole logistics network, it's going to continue operating, but it's also going to slow down and it's going to hurt people in that industry.
