Those Plucky American Consumers?

By Jock O’Connell, Economist

In case no one else noticed, there was a widely reported false dawn earlier this month.

It began on May 11, when the nation’s busiest container port, the Port of Los Angeles, announced it had handled 4.7% more inbound laden TEUs this April than it had in the same month a year earlier. More than that, it was the port’s second busiest April ever in terms of inbound loads.

When asked to account for the bump in April’s imports, a port official credited the “still resilient, still spending” American consumer.

That remark was widely seized upon as a newsworthy counter to the unfolding narrative of troubling economic news. Despite all the reports of gasoline prices changing hourly, rising food costs, and the sight of increasing numbers of fancy BMWs and Mercedes in the parking lots outside of Dollar Stores, the upbeat April numbers from the Port of Los Angeles seemed to offer welcomed evidence that, as the media dutifully reported, consumers “are still buying at near record paces” and that “retailers and manufacturers are continuing to move goods despite uncertainty.”

Unfortunately, this was a classic example of journalists running with scissors.

The good news soon perished under a wave of falling import numbers from virtually every other major port in the nation.

Had the headline-chasers waited a day or two, they would have seen the glowing April figure’s from the Port of Los Angeles balanced out by the data from the neighboring Port of Long Beach, where inbound loaded TEUs were down 7.1% from the year before. As a result, the volume of inbound laden TEUs through the San Pedro Bay complex was actually down 1.1% year-over-year, an outcome that was more consistent with months of data attesting to declining consumer confidence as well as a worrisome outlook the National Retail Federation’s Global Port Tracker posted on May 8.

Elsewhere, there was scarcely any sign of a consumer-driven surge in April imports. At the Northwest Seaport Alliance Ports of Tacoma and Seattle, import loads plunged by 29.9% from April 2025, while inbound loads fell by 40.5% at Oregon’s Port of Portland. On the East Coast, inbound loads were down 6.7% at Philadelphia, down 9.1% at Norfolk, down 12.9% at Charleston, and down 13.2% at Savannah. On the Gulf Coast, Port Houston saw an 8.4% year-over-year fall-off in inbound loads.

So did the nation’s consumers suddenly put away their credit cards in April?

There remains a misconception in the public’s mind, perhaps fostered by a 24/7 news cycle that preemptively stirs the pudding, that time is not a factor worth weighing when interpreting the day’s news. Similarly, there is a common failure to appreciate that consumers themselves import almost nothing. Instead, importing is the nearly exclusive province of businesses large and small who wager considerable sums of capital on the belief they will be able to sell merchandise they ordered from overseas factories weeks or months ago to consumers weeks or even months from now.

The goods imported through America’s seaports in April were not conjured up instantly in response to current consumer demand. Importing is, rather, a high-risk enterprise of betting on what tens of millions of consumers might want to buy at some point in the future.  

The commentary, views, and opinions expressed by Jock O’Connell are his own and do not reflect the views or positions of the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association. PMSA does not endorse, support, or make any representations regarding the content provided by any third party commentator.