U.S. Port Import Values Drop Faster Than Tonnage After Liberation Day Tariffs

To paraphrase an adage, when you’ve seen one port statistic, you’ve seen one port statistic. As much as seaport officials like to roll out their latest TEU tallies, there are alternate measures of the nation’s waterborne trade that provide alternative indices of the economic importance of port operations. Foremost among these are the figures provided on the tens of thousands of import/export documents filed every day with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. These data points serve as the empirical grist for the foreign trade statistics compiled and published monthly by the Foreign Trade Division of the U.S. Census Bureau, an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department. The cargo weight numbers are of immense importance to transportation industry providers and planners, while the cargo value numbers establish -- much more usefully than any tally of boxes -- the true economic worth of the nation’s foreign commerce.

So here we present the Top 20 Port rankings for the First Quarter of 2026 for both containerized imports and exports by both tonnage and value. By convention, we have collapsed the data for the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach as well as the numbers for the Ports of Tacoma and Seattle.

Exhibit A. Top 20 U.S. Ports
First Quarter Containerized Import Trade

By Declared Tonnage in MTs

	Port/Gateway	Q1 2025	Q1 2026
1	LA/Long Beach	14,396,167	13,049,415
2	PNYNJ	9,159,900	8,772,011
3	Savannah	4,846,376	4,821,791
4	Houston	4,449,597	4,324,356
5	Norfolk	2,783,069	2,997,090
6	Charleston	2,569,356	2,500,954
7	NWSA	2,276,524	1,821.084
8	Oakland	1,700,466	1,525,342
9	Baltimore	1,512,765	1,397,764
10	Philadelphia	1,548,282	1,368,584
11	Miami	1,204,466	1,200,431
12	New Orleans	541,300	813,390
13	Port Everglades	960,690	805,339
14	JaxPort	644,896	584,196
15	Mobile	499,535	494,352
16	Wilmington, DE	446,733	426,127
17	Boston	262,967	460,598
18	San Juan	722,255	395,972
19	Port Hueneme	386,930	382,318
20	Chester, PA	305,965	318,223

By Declared $ Value In Billions

	Port/Gateway	Q1 2025	Q1 2026
1	LA/Long Beach	$12.352	$11.758
2	Port Houston	$9.403	$9.500
3	PNYNJ	$9.314	$9.446
4	Norfolk	$8.094	$8.215
5	Savannah	$6.633	$6.412
6	Oakland	$4.390	$4.515
7	Charleston	$3.704	$3.320
8	Port Everglades	$3.097	$2.927
9	NWSA	$2.385	$2.462
10	Miami	$2.327	$2.358
11	Wilmington, NC	$1.207	$1.356
12	New Orleans	$1.472	$1.307
13	Baltimore	$0.961	$1.259
14	Chester, PA	$1.337	$1.236
15	Philadelphia	$1.096	$0.954
16	San Juan	$1.187	$0.861
17	JaxPort	$0.855	$0.821
18	W. Palm Beach	$0.649	$0.631
19	Mobile	$0.629	$0.504
20	Portland, ME	$0.199	$0.244

Exhibit B. Top 20 U.S. Ports
First Quarter Containerized Export Trade

By Declared $ Value In Billions

By Declared Tonnage in MTs

	Port/Gateway	Q1 2025	Q1 2026
1	LA/Long Beach	5,008,042	5,140,058
2	Port Houston	4,610,211	4,600,365
3	Savannah	3,676,824	3,733,657
4	PNYNJ	2,682,615	2,714,828
5	Norfolk	2,419,533	2,570,598
6	Charleston	1,708,648	1,717,602
7	NWSA	1,673,465	1,694,635
8	Oakland	1,607,040	1,636,980
9	New Orleans	916,899	803,189
10	Port Everglades	535,048	523,042
11	Baltimore	443,870	464,143
12	Miami	461,035	458,068
13	Mobile	421,870	341,262
14	Wilmington, NC	243,060	224,492
15	West Palm Beach	175,128	182,093
16	JaxPort	179,895	162,506
17	Boston	137,358	161,506
18	San Juan	125,841	144,956
19	Gulfport, MS	167,188	141,406
20	Philadelphia	169,191	139,711

	Port/Gateway	Q1 2025	Q1 2026
1	LA/Long Beach	$12.352	$11.758
2	Port Houston	$9.403	$9.500
3	PNYNJ	$9.314	$9.446
4	Norfolk	$8.094	$8.215
5	Savannah	$6.633	$6.412
6	Oakland	$4.390	$4.515
7	Charleston	$3.704	$3.320
8	Port Everglades	$3.097	$2.927
9	NWSA	$2.385	$2.462
10	Miami	$2.327	$2.358
11	Wilmington, NC	$1.207	$1.356
12	New Orleans	$1.472	$1.307
13	Baltimore	$0.961	$1.259
14	Chester, PA	$1.337	$1.236
15	Philadelphia	$1.096	$0.954
16	San Juan	$1.187	$0.861
17	JaxPort	$0.855	$0.821
18	W. Palm Beach	$0.649	$0.631
19	Mobile	$0.629	$0.504
20	Portland, ME	$0.199	$0.244

As this graph reveals, the two variables have tended to track each other closely, even through the period of the Great Recession and the onset of the COVID-19 epidemic. For most of the past two decades, however, year-over-year changes in value assessments have grown faster than increases in declared cargo weight, except quite recently.

Exhibit D focuses on the months before and after the April 2, 2025 “Liberation Day” tariff increases.   

U.S. importers moved to limit their exposure to the new tariffs. Some of these measures they adopted have involved persuading overseas suppliers to cut their export prices. Another popular tactic has been to rejigger supply chains so as to source imported goods from nations facing relatively low tariff rates. Yet another tactic has been to house imported merchandise in foreign trade zones where the payment of duties can be postponed. Whatever means are being used to reduce the declared value of containerized imports, the result has been fairly clear. Exhibit D testifies to the assiduousness of those efforts, especially in the year since Liberation Day. Import values at U.S. ports lately have been dropping faster than import tonnage.

Exhibit E focuses on changes in the declared weight and dollar value of containerized goods imported through the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Here, the experience of the two big Southern California ports nearly recapitulates what we have seen happening nationally over the past year.