What is going on in Long Beach port?

Most houses at the United States have items that came through the ports of Los Angeles or Long Beach, because they are the two most important in the country.

The pandemic brought challenges to every industry and the global supply chain struggles to meet consumer needs causing a never seen before saturation at the largest ports of the United States where shipments are stopped for weeks.

The container ships queuing at the ports carry everything imaginable imported from Asia. Numbers indicate that 25% more cargo arrived in the US in the first eight months of 2021 when compared with the same period in 2019 before the pandemic hit.

Consumer habits also changed. Since people were unable to go out, they started to shop online and that resulted in companies being unable to meet the demand because of pandemic halts in their production lines.

These delays impact the economy because people haven’t received their goods, for instance, billion dollars of Halloween and Christmas decorations from China are waiting to be cleared at the ports and they are definitely late.

In a normal situation, ships will carry containers to the port where they are checked and unloaded. Trucks are already waiting to load the merchandise and they leave. Then, empty containers return to the ships to free port space. 

In the current situation, ships carry containers to port but there isn’t enough staff to move the containers or truck drivers to transport the merchandises.

So when containers are finally emptied, they stack up in port causing queues and referrals to other ports that also get congested as too many vessels arrive. 

It is a situation no one was prepared to face as a global pandemic wasn’t in anybody’s mind, no protocols were in place and the crisis exposed the holes in the American supply chain, an issue that the Biden Administration is working to fix.

An urgent infrastructure upgrade is necessary. The White House appointed a task force to solve this and actions include keeping the ports open longer to improve the congestion. 

Industry experts don’t think that this will solve easily or soon, so merchants will have to find alternatives to bring their goods to the US sooner. Mexican ports and ground transportation present an option to avoid congestion at California ports.

Source:

https://www.bbc.com/news/58926842