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North America’s West Coast ports handled 3.7 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of laden imports in the second quarter of 2026 — a 7.1 percent year-on-year increase — but the aggregate masks a sharp geographic split that supply chain managers cannot afford to miss: Southern California gained at a double-digit pace while the Pacific Northwest shrank, opening the widest gap between the two regions in recent memory and extending a structural market share shift that predates this year’s tariff drama.
Sea-Intelligence data released today by Port Technology International attributes the 7.1 percent gain to a deliberate acceleration of cargo clearances ahead of the July 24 expiry of the Section 122 global import surcharge and the simultaneous activation of new Section 301 forced-labor tariffs covering roughly 60 economies. Shippers prioritizing on-time customs clearance increasingly favored Los Angeles and Long Beach — ports with the terminal capacity, drayage depth, and transcontinental rail connectivity to guarantee it. Seattle, Tacoma, Vancouver, and Prince Rupert paid the price.
LA and Long Beach Post Double-Digit Gains While Pacific Northwest Contracts
The Port of Los Angeles logged a 13.8 percent increase in laden imports across the second quarter compared with Q2 2025, while the Port of Long Beach — which posted its third-busiest June on record — recorded 12.0 percent growth over the same period. Long Beach’s strong June pushed first-half throughput to 4,829,578 TEUs across H1, running 1.7 percent ahead of the record pace set during the first six months of 2025 — itself a front-loaded year.
The quarter’s centerpiece month was May, when total container volumes across the West Coast complex jumped 12.7 percent year-on-year and laden imports surged 19.8 percent according to Sea-Intelligence. At the Port of Los Angeles specifically, May produced 840,165 TEUs — 17 percent above May 2025 — driven by a 26 percent spike in loaded imports as shippers worked to beat the approaching tariff transition.
“Companies are operating with shorter planning horizons and taking advantage of opportunities when they emerge,” Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka told reporters at a June 16 media briefing.
The divergence from the Pacific Northwest was severe. The Northwest Seaport Alliance — the joint operating entity for the ports of Seattle and Tacoma — reported a 9.2 percent year-on-year reduction in laden imports for the quarter. Vancouver, British Columbia fell 4.8 percent, and Prince Rupert — which Port Technology International identified as the steepest Pacific Northwest decliner — posted a 12.4 percent drop. The resulting gap between LA/Long Beach and the Northwest Seaport Alliance topped 23 percentage points — historically unusual and pointing to active cargo diversion rather than passive structural drift.
“The double-digit increases indicated a stronger preference among shippers to route discretionary cargo through Southern California as they sought to complete customs clearance before the July measures took effect,” Port Technology International’s report noted.
Why the Tariff Calendar Became a Port Routing Variable
Understanding why the volume landed where it did requires a brief tour of the tariff timeline that produced it.
Following a landmark February 2026 Supreme Court ruling in Learning Resources v. Trump that struck down the administration’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose tariffs, the White House pivoted to alternative legal authorities. A temporary surcharge under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 took effect at 10 percent starting February 24, then was raised to 15 percent — the statutory maximum. Section 122 carries a 150-day ceiling and cannot be extended unilaterally by the president — making July 24 a legally fixed expiry date.
The Office of the US Trade Representative activated the Section 301 replacement regime at 12:01 a.m. ET on July 24. The two-tier structure — 10 percent for economies with some forced-labor import prohibitions, 12.5 percent for all others — covers roughly 60 economies including Canada, Mexico, the EU, China, Japan, and India, stacking on top of existing Most Favored Nation duty rates. Goods already in transit before July 24 that arrived at US ports by July 28 were exempted, creating a four-day grace window that shippers worked aggressively to exploit, per Akerman LLP’s July analysis. Two lawsuits challenging the tariffs were filed in the Court of International Trade on the day they took effect.
The result was a textbook front-loading cycle. Port of Long Beach CEO Dr. Noel Hacegaba said during his July briefing that “businesses are preparing for volatility, not certainty” and that retailers were accelerating imports to keep shelves stocked at lower costs ahead of any further policy shifts.
Why LA and Long Beach? The Customs Clearance Geometry Advantage
The routing preference for Southern California during deadline-driven front-loading episodes is not coincidental. It reflects specific operational advantages that the San Pedro Bay complex holds over Pacific Northwest alternatives when importers need to guarantee on-time customs clearance.
Los Angeles and Long Beach together handle more than one-third of all US container imports in a normal year. The depth of their terminal capacity, drayage workforce, US Customs and Border Protection officer staffing, and transcontinental rail connections — via BNSF and Union Pacific lines running directly to inland distribution centers east of the Rockies — gives shippers the most reliable path to cleared-customs status within a compressed time window. Seroka reported no vessel backlogs or cargo delays at LA through the surge peak, a performance he attributed to the combined efforts of “terminals, longshore labor force, trucking companies and rail partners.”
The Pacific Northwest lacks equivalent infrastructure scale. While the Northwest Seaport Alliance calls itself the third-largest container gateway in North America, it serves a different cargo mix and hinterland — and critically, its transcontinental rail access is less extensive than the San Pedro Bay network. When importers are choosing a port in a deadline-sensitive environment, that difference in customs clearance throughput geometry can determine routing decisions almost overnight.
Pacific Merchant Shipping Association market share data makes the stakes concrete. In May 2026, Los Angeles and Long Beach saw their share of US containerized import tonnage rise 2.9 percentage points year-on-year, while the combined share held by Oakland and the Northwest Seaport Alliance fell.
Seattle and Tacoma: A Structural Problem Older Than This Tariff Cycle
The Pacific Northwest’s Q2 shortfall is not simply a one-quarter anomaly. It is the sharpest expression yet of a multi-year structural rebalancing of US import geography that has been reshaping port market share since at least 2019.
PMSA data shows the combined share of US containerized import tonnage handled by Oakland and the Northwest Seaport Alliance contracted from 10.6 percent in May 2019 to just 6.5 percent in May 2026 — a decline of more than a third in seven years, per PMSA’s May 2026 report. Over the same period, Los Angeles and Long Beach held their share near the mid-to-high twenties.
China’s outsized share of Pacific Northwest trade amplifies the structural vulnerability. China accounts for roughly 40 percent of the NWSA’s imports and approximately 52 percent of its exports by value, with Asia overall representing over 90 percent of trade. That concentration gives the alliance significant exposure to Sino-American trade policy volatility — and makes every tariff cycle that reshuffles China cargo more damaging to Seattle and Tacoma than to the more diversified Southern California gateways.
Port of Tacoma Commission President John McCarthy acknowledged the fundamental challenge: “What we are facing really is kind of uncertainty and inconsistency. And that’s never good for business. It’s never good for the economy.”
The NWSA entered 2026 already on the back foot. Container volumes ran roughly 14 percent below year-earlier levels through Q1, according to the Kidder Mathews Q2 2026 Seattle Industrial Market Report — a figure that regional real estate analysts flagged as a leading indicator of softening industrial demand across the greater Puget Sound market.
Does Long Beach’s Digital Buildout Give It a Durable Edge?
Even as volumes swing with policy cycles, Long Beach has continued pushing capital programs designed to turn today’s volume advantage into a durable structural one.
California’s Port and Freight Infrastructure Program awarded Long Beach a record $383 million grant in the first half of 2026, funding that the port says is supporting 22,000 jobs, reducing emissions, and modernizing operations. The port launched CargoNAV — a digital platform that gives cargo owners, truck drivers, and supply chain partners real-time shipment visibility — and opened its Cyber Defense Operations Center, known as SeaDOC, in partnership with the US Coast Guard, US Customs and Border Protection, and the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. SeaDOC is the first maritime cybersecurity facility of its type at a major US commercial port, designed to defend the port’s digital infrastructure, which powers $300 billion in annual trade.
Construction continues on the Pier B on-dock rail support facility, aimed at deepening the rail capacity that is already the most compelling routing argument the port makes to deadline-sensitive importers.
Los Angeles approved a $3.4 billion annual budget for fiscal year 2026-27, with increased investment in both operational infrastructure and sustainability programs. Seroka said the port expects to handle more than 900,000 TEUs in both June and July 2026, which would make each month among its busiest ever.
What Follows the Surge: The Demand Cliff Now Arriving
The Q2 volume data is only half of what supply chain operators need to understand today. What follows a front-loading surge is typically what analysts call a demand cliff — a sharp pullback in volumes as importers who accelerated shipments work through elevated inventories and reduce new orders.
This pattern played out visibly after Q1 2025’s front-loading episode, when import volumes at several major ports tumbled in the weeks after the relevant deadline passed. ITS Logistics Vice President of Global Supply Chain Paul Brashier named it explicitly in April 2025 as a “cliff event similar to the impacts felt during the immediate COVID response,” in his April 2025 freight index.
Early indicators suggest the same dynamic may be emerging now. Trans-Pacific container bookings to the US West Coast peaked near record weekly levels in late June before leveling off as the July 24 deadline passed. Seroka noted that purchase orders placed with Asian manufacturers — a leading indicator watched closely by port economists — are running steady roughly three months out, suggesting underlying consumer demand has not collapsed. But in an environment where a court ruling or executive action can reshape cargo flows within weeks, steady purchase orders are not the same as predictable volumes.
For carriers and terminal operators, the boom-bust cadence creates real operational headaches: labor scheduling, berth planning, and equipment repositioning all become more difficult when volumes lurch unpredictably. For retailers and manufacturers, front-loaded inventory may blunt restocking orders well into Q3 and Q4, even as underlying consumer demand remains relatively stable.
Seroka framed the underlying reality directly: “US trade policy continues to keep everyone on edge.”
How to Use the Data: A Supply Chain Decision Guide
The Q2 volume split carries actionable implications for different categories of supply chain decision-makers.
Importers who route through the Pacific Northwest should model whether their ports of choice can reliably complete customs clearance before the next tariff policy event — and whether LA/Long Beach’s higher volume and deeper infrastructure gives them a clearance advantage worth the additional transit time from some Asian origin ports. PMSA’s trend data suggests this routing shift has been underway at a structural level since 2019, accelerating sharply whenever a deadline creates time pressure.
Industrial real estate operators in the Puget Sound market should treat NWSA’s continued import share losses as a leading indicator of near-term demand softness for distribution facilities dependent on port proximity. The Kidder Mathews Q2 data flagged this connection explicitly.
Importers with Asian manufacturing relationships concentrated in China face elevated structural risk through the NWSA gateway, given that China accounts for 40 percent of the alliance’s import volume. Diversification to Vietnam, South Korea, and other non-China origin markets — a strategy the NWSA’s own commissioners are actively promoting — reduces but does not eliminate this exposure.
Frequently Asked QuestionsWhy did Los Angeles and Long Beach gain so much more import volume than Seattle and Tacoma in Q2 2026?
Southern California’s two dominant ports benefit from a specific set of operational advantages that matter most in deadline-driven routing decisions: unmatched terminal capacity, a deep drayage workforce, full-time US Customs and Border Protection staffing at scale, and direct transcontinental rail connections via BNSF and Union Pacific to the country’s largest inland distribution hubs. When shippers need to guarantee that a container will clear customs before a tariff transition date, LA and Long Beach offer the lowest operational risk. The Pacific Northwest ports serve a different cargo mix and have less extensive rail reach east of the Rockies — a gap that shows up most sharply when the calendar becomes the decisive routing variable.
Is the Pacific Northwest’s market share loss permanent, or will it recover after tariff uncertainty settles?
The Pacific Northwest was losing market share before this tariff cycle. Pacific Merchant Shipping Association data shows the combined share of US containerized import tonnage handled by Oakland and the Northwest Seaport Alliance shrank from 10.6 percent in May 2019 to 6.5 percent in May 2026 — a structural trend that predates the current tariff environment. The Q2 2026 divergence likely reflects some temporary tariff-driven diversion, but it also reflects and accelerates that longer secular shift. How much the NWSA recovers depends partly on whether it can reduce its 40 percent China import concentration by building trade with alternative Asian origins, and partly on whether future tariff policy events continue to reward LA/Long Beach’s clearance geometry.
What replaced the Section 122 tariff after July 24, 2026, and how does it affect future shipping decisions?
The US Trade Representative activated new Section 301 forced-labor tariffs at 12:01 a.m. ET on July 24 — a two-tier structure of 10 percent for economies with some forced-labor import prohibitions and 12.5 percent for all others, covering roughly 60 economies and stacking on top of existing Most Favored Nation duty rates. Unlike Section 122, which carried a 150-day ceiling and could not be extended by presidential proclamation, Section 301 tariffs have no automatic expiry. Two lawsuits challenging the tariffs were filed in the Court of International Trade on July 24, the day they took effect, arguing the government exceeded its authority. Importers should model the compounding duty structure — existing MFN rates plus the new Section 301 layer — before finalizing Q3 sourcing decisions.
How will the post-surge demand cliff affect West Coast port volumes in Q3 2026?
The front-loading surge that drove Q2’s gains typically produces a proportionate inventory overhang that suppresses reorder activity in the weeks that follow. The Port of LA’s own fiscal year forecast projects a 7 percent cargo decline in FY 2026-27 compared with the prior period. Purchase orders at LA — sent to Asian factories three to four months in advance — are running at a steady pace rather than accelerating, suggesting the underlying demand has not collapsed but is not accelerating beyond trend. Carriers are likely to respond with selective blank sailings to defend freight rates as the post-deadline volume pullback materializes. How deep and how long the cliff lasts depends significantly on whether US tariff policy stabilizes enough to let importers plan inventory replenishment at normal lead times rather than in reactive sprints.