The Port of Long Beach handled 901,846 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) this August, falling 1.3 percent short of the containers the West Coast gateway processed in the year-ago month.
The port’s monthly cargo report followed a recent incident where dozens of containers fell off a cargo ship docked at one of its terminals. The incident forced operations at the port’s Pier G terminal to shut down for the day. Cargo operations throughout have been mostly unaffected.
As for the port’s performance in August, cargo numbers reflect the volume declines expected for the final five months of 2025. Imports declined 3.6 percent to 440,318 TEUs and exports decreased 8.3 percent to 95,960 TEUs. Empty containers moving through the port rose 3.7 percent to 365,567 TEUs.
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“Shifting trade policies continue to create uncertainty for businesses and consumers,” said Port of Long Beach CEO Mario Cordero in a statement. “Our Supply Chain Information Highway digital tracker is projecting our peak shipping season to be on pace with last year as retailers start to stock their warehouses in preparation for the winter holidays.”
The commentary runs counter to some industry projections suggesting that the bulk of the peak shipping season has already passed. The port’s August numbers were down from July numbers, which had increased 7 percent year-over-year to 944,232 TEUs.
And across the board at major U.S. ports, projections for August indicate a 1.7 percent decline in inbound cargo volume to 2.28 million TEUs, before sequentially declining every month through December, according to the Global Port Tracker from NRF and Hackett Associates.
The slowdown is largely attributed to the White House’s imposition of tariffs on U.S. trade partners, with higher duty rates going back into effect on Aug. 7 after months of trade negotiations. Throughout the summer, the looming August deadline resulted in more shippers front-loading goods into U.S. ports.
For the full year, the Port of Long Beach has largely endured the tariff whiplash impacting the trans-Pacific trade lane since April. The port has moved 6,592,708 TEUs through the first eight months of 2025, up 8.3 percent from the same period last year.
Carriers play musical chairs with ships ahead of U.S. port fees
As U.S. ports grapple with forecasts of continued cargo declines, container shipping giants are maneuvering through the impending fees set to be placed on Chinese-operated and -built ships planning to dock there.
According to Drewry, between May and August, the number of China-built vessels on the trans-Pacific route fell by 19 percent to 102 vessels. On the Asia-to-U.S. East Coast trade lane, 33 China-built vessels were active, amounting to a 20 percent drop over that time. For trans-Atlantic voyages, there were 44 China-built ships in August, a 6 percent reduction from May numbers.
Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) CEO Soren Toft said in a customer advisory that the world’s largest container shipping company “proactively restructured its global vessel network” in response to the fees drawn up by the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR). Currently, half of the ocean carrier’s more than 900 ships are South Korean-built, enabling the company to make changes to its service lines that should enable the carrier to absorb or avoid costs associated with the new fees, Toft said.
Earlier this month, the Premier Alliance separated its Mediterranean Pacific South 2 (MS2) service into two services, redeploying 10 Chinese-built ships to the newly created Asia-Mediterranean (MD2) loop. The vessel-sharing alliance consists of Ocean Network Express (ONE), Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM) and Yang Ming.
A Monday market update from container shipping research firm Linerlytica said the likes of MSC, ONE and Yang Ming, alongside the Gemini Cooperation of Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd, will shift all their affected ships out of the trans-Pacific trade before the mid-October deadline.
However, the update indicated that CMA CGM and Zim have still not made moves to shift their non-exempt ships, with the carriers potentially incurring bills of up to $37 million and $35 million respectively in the first 6 months. CMA CGM, of which 36 percent of tonnage is Chinese-built, said it expects to maintain service coverage to all scheduled U.S. ports and will not add a surcharge if it is impacted by the fees.
The most impacted will be Cosco Shipping and subsidiary Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL), which HSBC calculated would have to pay a combined $2.1 billion in fees next year without a network adjustment.
Linerlytica expects Cosco on its own to incur fees of $1 billion in the first six months of the year, while it anticipates another Chinese state-owned ocean carrier, Hede Shipping, to pay up $40 million.
“Cosco and Hede have retained all of their ships on the trans-Pacific services despite the hefty charges that they will incur,” Linerlytica noted.
