USWC Historic Shares of U.S. Containerized Trade
The 43-days shutdown of federal government agencies last fall continues to affect the publication of official U.S. foreign trade statistics. The trade numbers for last November, for example, should normally have been published in the first week of January but were not released until January 29. By then, January’s issue of the West Coast Trade Report had already been sent to readers. The Commerce Department then published the trade figures for December on February 19. As a result, we now have the privilege of sharing two months of data on the U.S. West Coast share of containerized trade (by weight and value) through mainland U.S. seaports both November and December 2025.
Exhibit 5. USWC Ports' Shares of November U.S. Container Trade with East Asia
Exhibit 4. USWC Ports' Share of All U.S. Worldwide Container Trade
The November numbers testify to the abrupt fall-off from a year earlier in container traffic through USWC ports relative to ports elsewhere in the country. Interestingly, in November 2024, the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach enjoyed a combined share of containerized import tonnage that topped their share in pre-pandemic November 2019. Over the same period, though, the San Pedro Bay ports’ share of the declared value of containerized imports fell by 3.4 percentage points. On the export side of the ledger, the declines in USWC shares have been more pronounced.
In addition to showing that USWC ports have been ceding shares of the nation’s containerized marine trade to ports on the East and Gulf Coasts, the numbers also demonstrate the extent to which container traffic through the nation’s Pacific Coast ports is gravitating toward the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in Southern California.
The data for December 2025 reveal a continued retreat from the USWC container trade shares that were boosted during last year’s surge in imported merchandise from Asia, as U.S. importers sought to get ahead of the higher and broader tariffs President Trump had been threatening.
