By Lisa Baertlein
LOS ANGELES, Sept 9 (Reuters) – The Port of Los Angeles set a new three-month volume record during June, July and August after retailers rushed in goods to avoid new tariffs and higher fuel costs, the executive director of the nation’s busiest ocean container port said on Wednesday.
Halloween costumes, Thanksgiving decor and Hanukkah and Christmas gifts are among the goods that surged into to U.S. seaports a few months earlier than usual this year after importers raced to front-run President Donald Trump’s tariffs replacing those struck down by the courts and shipping contract fuel cost increases tied to the Iran war.
Waterfront workers at the Port of Los Angeles handled 955,907 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in August, taking the three-month total to 2.9 million TEUs – beating the previous record set during the COVID-19 shipping boom.
Retailers traditionally account for nearly half of container shipping volume. Economists, financial analysts and traders analysts monitor ocean container imports because they reflect the health of the consumer-spending-dependent US economy.
“June was probably our peak,” Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, said during a media briefing focused on holiday imports.
“A good chunk of it is already here, but we’ll see that continue to flow in the next couple of months,” said Brian Dodge, CEO of the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA), said of holiday-related imports.
Some imports were delayed due to severe weather in China and some rerouting away from the Panama Canal amid potential drought conditions there, said Jonathan Gold, vice president for supply chain and customs policy at the National Retail Federation (NRF).
“Consumers keep buying despite tariffs, inflation and high fuel prices, and retailers keep bringing in merchandise to meet demand,” Gold said.
“There’s cause for optimism as we head into the back half of this year, and certainly retail Super Bowl, which is the holiday shopping season,” RILA’s Dodge said of the year-end retail period that can make or break company profits.
(Reporting by Lisa Baertlein; Editing by Alistair Bell)
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