Cross-Border Competition in the Pacific Northwest

Officials at the Northwest Seaport Alliance Ports of Tacoma and Seattle have long lamented that their rival Canadian Port of Vancouver enjoys the advantage of not being subject to the U.S. Harbor Maintenance Tax, making shipping through the British Columbia gateway cheaper (all other things being equal, which they seldom are). Here are two graphs depicting the increasing gap in volumes of containerized import tonnage passing through the two Pacific northwest maritime gateways.