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Comment by snozolli | Hacker News Reader

I find it odd that recent articles are always about the Port of Seattle. From a quick Google search, it looks like the busiest US ports are Los Angeles, Long Beach, Port of New York, Port of Savannah, then Port of Seattle. As of 2018, the Port of Los Angeles alone was almost 3x busier than the Port of Seattle.

Not that it isn't worth noting, but I'm much more interested in overall volume across all of the nation's ports, and especially the West Coast ports.

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LA is down 32% YoY this week[0].

But also LA and Long Beach are effectively a single port, so per your enumeration … Seattle is the second biggest port on the west coast? Seems like that’d be one to look at when we’re talking about transpacific trade?

[0]: https://volumes.portoptimizer.com/ . NB The predictions for subsequent weeks are based on historical data AFAICT, and haven’t been accurate. The actual are good data though.

But also LA and Long Beach are effectively a single port, so per your enumeration … Seattle is the second biggest port on the west coast?

Long Beach has almost the traffic as Los Angeles, so by your logic Seattle is only 1/6 the volume.

Seems like that’d be one to look at when we’re talking about transpacific trade?

Which one? I would be looking at LA and LB.

I didn’t say it was a close second.

Again, LA/LB are basically the same port. One would also want to look at the next biggest geographically distinct port, which on the west coast is Seattle

IIRC there was some speculation that a dip in container volumes would lead to less calls at smaller ports since there would be more room available at larger ports, and reducing port calls both reduces fees and travel times.

Not that it invalidates your point, but you're missing a lot of ports. Houston, South Louisiana, Mobile, Beaumont, etc. Seattle is actually 17th by foreign import tonnage.

Friend of mine is in the commercial real estate business, leases lots of warehouses to big names. He says he's seeing a LOT of uptake on the east coast: Savannah, Jacksonville FL, Charleston.

A lot of companies are shifting to production in India, Pakistan, Vietnam, and it's easier to ship through Suez to the east coast from there.

I have been looking for an explanation to the US empty ports news. The best one I came with is that ships have been switching their destination ports to some that they could reach before the tariffs or some that have available tariff-free storage where the cargo can stay until Trump backpedals.

The total cargo volume seems to be falling only now, what still may be just noise.

The simple explanation is that many (but not all) exporters simply stopped exporting things in April (as those shipments would have arrived in May, after the tariffs took effect). And many of the factories overseas have cut back on production, especially of low-value goods most affected by tariffs. Smaller ports like Seattle generally handle the overflow from the bigger ports, so they're the first to be affected by the reduction in cargo traffic.

Even if tariffs are reduced/eliminated, there will still be a lag of 3-6 weeks before destination-port cargo traffic picks up again, assuming that there is product overseas ready to be shipped.

My understanding is that ship tarrifs are calculated at the time of departure, not arrival. This supports the delayed volume reduction since we see the change 22 to 40 days delayed (Pacific transit time).

These in particular are calculated based on time of departure. I don’t believe that’s the common case though.

Right, be interesting to see if the departure volume also dropped or how long it lags behind arrivals.

I was thinking that too; I’m guessing the Seattle port was posted just because Seattle is a tech hub and people recognize the city.

I’m sure imports will be down though, as that’s the point of the tariffs

This shows port traffic increasing by 56% when compared to the prior year for the time period of May 18-24 based on the number of scheduled vessels and twenty foot equivalent unit (TEU). What's really going on if tariffs were having a major detrimental impact?

The uptick can be explained by this story[0]. As trade talks begin, exporters want to be ready to begin shipping ASAP. It remains to be seen if this will volume will come through depending on the results of these trade talks and tariffs.

[0] https://gcaptain.com/as-trade-talks-begin-chinese-exporters-...

https://www.npr.org/2025/05/07/nx-s1-5389955/los-angeles-por...

LA Port is down 35 percent so far.

Might be because more southern ports handle a wider variety of cargo origins (e.g., South America), whereas most cargo to Seattle is from China? Just speculation.

Savannah is one of the busiest container ports in the United States. China is the largest trading partner. Other countries are Vietnam, South Korea, India, Japan, Germany, UK, Netherlands, Italy, France, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Argentina, Canada, Turkey, Indonesia, and Thailand. Pretty much year to year, TEU has been steadily increasing not decreasing. March was up over the previous year despite tariff threats back then.

https://gaports.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Monthly-TEU-T...

Still don't have updated data for April and May published.

Data from before the tariffs went into effect would reflect an increase in imports due to companies trying to get things in before they take effect.

I don't follow you. You can find numerous articles about cargo rates falling for those ports as well.

I don't follow you

What's not to follow? Numerous articles have been published with sensational headlines like "the Port of Seattle is empty". It's the smallest port on the West Coast.

As others have posted, LA is down 35%. That's useful information, not "this much smaller port is empty!"

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