B (2:56)

The workhorse vessel in the Trans Pacific trade today holds about 14,000 container units and stays in port to work less than four days. It wasn't but a little more than a decade ago that a 9,000 container unit vessel was seen as the workhorse. Now there are 14,000 to 16,000 units. And the biggest vessels in the world, which have called here in Los angeles, are at 23,000 container units. You've got to have the infrastructure and the equipment to handle these ships. As they progressively increased in size, the shoreside cranes are the tallest in the United States, both here at Pier 400, the APMT facility, as well as the Phoenix Marine terminal at Pier 300. The cranes had to get bigger because the ship size also increased. Foreign

A (3:52)

let's start off big picture. How important is the Port of Los Angeles to the local economy?

B (3:59)

It's 7,500 acres of property, 43 miles of waterfront, and the cargo that traverses our port reaches not only all 50 states, but each and every one of our 435 congressional districts. About a billion dollars a day of cargo moves through this port, imports, exports combined. And it's not just the container traffic. It's energy, products, perishables. One in 15 working Angelenos has a job today related to this port. It's 1 in 9 people in Southern California making a million jobs and a million families counting on us to do our work here at the port.

A (4:41)

And how many people specifically work at the port?

B (4:44)

That kind of goes in waves. So I represent the harbor department in the city of Los Angeles. I report to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. We have about 905 workers here in this department. Everything from administrators like me to engineers, construction and maintenance, port police and associated civilian peace officers. A whole group of folks on the docks any given day with our marine terminal operators and all the activity. For the cargo movie, you probably see about 100,000 people working at the Port of Los Angeles. And then extrapolate that 10 times for all the people throughout the region who have a job related to this port. Yes, they could be truck drivers, dock workers, warehouse people, but it's also manufacturers, agriculture, folks on the farm, intermediaries like freight forwarders and customs house brokers, federal and state employees, and public safety, the United States Coast Guard. So it's a lot of different folks. We have over 9,000 transport companies that do business in and out of this port on a regular basis. It truly is a whole group of multi segmented organizations that make this place go every day.

A (6:02)

Now let's talk about the context for international trade. How important is the Port of Los Angeles to America's trade with the world?

B (6:11)

Port of Los Angeles and its neighbor, the Port of Long beach, account for 40% of our nation's imported containerized goods and about 30% of the exports. Ports throughout the nation account for about 21% of our $27 trillion GDP. And when I look out my window, I see a $33 trillion economy in Asia that we trade with. And those numbers just keep climbing.

A (6:41)

You mentioned 40% of US imports go through the Port of Los Angeles. What are they? So what are the types of goods and where do they come from?

B (6:52)

Two specific areas. One is finished retail and the other are parts and components for American factories. On the 1st, we typically see products like furniture, footwear, textiles, appliances and electronics. About 40% of all of our business at the Port of Los Angeles is trade with China. Second biggest trading partner is Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan, South Korea. Today, the top few on the factory side of our business, about an equal amount of cargo, similar to that finished good retail that we buy online and in stores are parts and components for American factories. So that's quite interesting because it's a couple of different looks at supply chain requirements between those segments.

A (7:44)

Much of the port's business involves trade with Asia and China. Especially in 2025, the US suddenly put tariffs of over 100% on imports coming in from China. What was the effect of those tariffs here at the port?

B (7:58)

I tell you what, the trade policy and the tariffs really threw us for a loop. But we did get a preview of this back in 2018, and what we saw was when an announcement came out on tariffs, you'd see a pretty good run up of imports. Folks trying to bring cargo in early to avoid those tariffs. And then once the milestone or effective date started, you'd see a pretty steep drop off, right? So back in 2019, our business dropped by like 16% in the fourth quarter. Then fast forward to the campaign trail during the summer of 2024 when the talk of trade policy first came up. You would hear things like 60% tariffs on China, 10% tariffs on the entire world. A repeat happened, but just on a larger scale. Importers started bringing in a lot more cargo. We had about 11 or 12 peak season months strung together of cargo volumes that were just really high. Then we started to see the tariffs come in in January. There were a couple of announcements, but it was April of 2025, when we saw on these big placards about 80 countries worth of new tariffs in strong double digit fashion, we started to see the American importer then slow down just a little bit. But when China tariffs went up to 145% about two weeks later, most importers just slammed on the brakes because at that point, with all the discussion, they didn't know if trade policy was gonna change in two hours, two weeks or two months. So they were gonna wait it out. And so much so that we saw the first week of May, our cargo volume dropped coming into the Port of Los angeles by about 30%. And it struggled through there until the tariff policy was softened and those tariff levels came down. We saw a record month in July with more than 1 million container units coming through of folks that just thought they had a small window and they really had to get cargo move through the system as quickly as they could to take advantage of this reprieve. I think there was a little bit of a cooling off period or a truce between the US and China for a few weeks and people really took advantage of that.

A (10:09)

Let's go back to the activity and the high tariffs. How disruptive was this for your workers and the local economy?

B (10:19)

That was the part that was really the most painful for us. So we had a lot of cargo coming through, as I mentioned, about a year's worth of peak season every month. And these dock workers here with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union just kept that cargo humming. The vital statistics that we look at the port, how long does it take a ship to work? How quickly do you get a truck in and out? How do you load the trains and get them out? All those key indicators were the best they had been in memory, meaning the cargo fluidity was just oh so sweet. What we then saw was when the cargo dropped off, that means those jobs go away, right? And these dock workers go to a hiring hall every morning and the employers of the marine terminals post how many jobs they need. Well, if cargo volume is down 30%, there's a good chance that jobs will be down 30% or more. And that's exactly what happened. So typically in a community like ours, everybody's tied to the port, from the dry cleaners to the restaurants, the Elks Club, everybody in between. We started seeing less foot traffic at the restaurants. Folks were wondering, hey, when is the next wave of cargo gonna come? Or is it because of these tariffs? You start hitting summer season where your kids and families are looking at going on vacation, then you gotta pay tuition for schools in a little bit. And there was a lot of apprehension in our community of San Pet, Wilmington, et cetera. And then because we've got a pretty good information system, the Port Optimizer by Wabtech. Once we saw that policy softened, shipping lines got their vessels back into rotation. That took about a week. Then it took them another week to scoop up all that cargo that had already been manufactured in Asia and start heading our way. So I started to see the booking numbers pick up or the reservations on these vessels and we could telegraph to the dock workers, the truckers, the warehouse folks, get ready. We got another wave coming. But it was this ebb and flow that left them, the workforce that's so important to us, so uneasy because they didn't know. With this whipsaw effect on policy, could this be the last big rush or is it really going to change permanently? Quite unsettling.

A (12:31)

Now I want to turn to exports. You also mentioned 30% of US exports go through the Port of Los Angeles. What American products get shipped out and where do those products tend to go?

B (12:44)

On the export side of the business, two big commodity groupings. One is the agriculture sector, right? Second to that are recyclables. Think of waste paper, plastic, metal, aluminum scrap that go back to Asia side and get redone into corrugated packaging into other products that will then return with those finished goods. But most of our cargo is agricultural products, right? Because in the United States, we only consume about a third of all the crops that are harvested. The balance 2/3 go to renewable energy and to emerging markets overseas. And in that sector, you've got things like, number five, red wheat, soybeans, identity preserve products, walnuts, almonds, pistachios, grapes and wine products here in California. The Central Valley of California is our breadbasket. And a tremendous amount of cargo moves out to the Pacific trade lanes coming through this gateway out of Central California. And so what we've seen now is that you've seen a drop in soybeans, 90% in trade with China. Last year alone, our business here at the port, we saw an 80% drop in soybean shipments to Asia. And other countries now have stepped in to replace the United States with new trade deals. Think of soybeans now coming out of Brazil and Argentina in trade with China, almonds coming out of Australia. And the thing about these products is it's not just a transactional business. These contracts are in place now 6, 912 months until the next bid may go out. And it could be a, you know, a sole bid contract that goes next time because they've already got that relationship. So a number of our farmers, ranchers, and growers are really, really hurting right now because they're not able to sell their crops in the overseas markets. Something has to be adjusted here.

A (14:38)

So U.S. exports, especially to China, of farm products last year really were devastated. One thing that I, as a data nerd, find really valuable about what you do is you provide a briefing every month about what trade is flowing through the port, and your data comes out about a month earlier than the overall US Government statistics that we're otherwise waiting for. So you sort of provide an early warning system for us. Now, in October of last year, President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in South Korea and negotiated a truce. And part of that truce was China agreeing to purchase a lot more American farm exports. The two presidents are scheduled to meet pretty soon. It's coming up in May. Have you seen an increase in U.S. exports of soybeans and other farm products through the port in your most recent data?

B (15:30)

Not at all, no. And we were watching really closely. I was in Korea in the month of October just before the APEC summit, and everybody was talking about this, right? And one of the really important aspects of this discussion was going to be, could we ramp up ag exports? So our industry and us here at the Port of Los Angeles were keenly interested in this. And so we watched the trade every day, every week, every month, and we've seen no uptick in those soybeans. The purchases didn't happen because they're fully subscribed. They've signed contracts with these other countries and just didn't have the bandwidth to be able to take on even more.

A (16:10)

Now let's turn to the war in Iran and how that has shut off the Strait of Hormuz, which has had devastating impacts on trade in energy products, fertilizer and more. Being unable to get out of the region, you have contacts in ports all over the world, and we're just traveling in Asia. What have you found most surprising about the impact of the war so far?

B (16:34)

I think after having lived and worked in the Middle east for five years and maintaining a lot of my good business contacts. And this was always the boogeyman. This was always the last shoe to drop. The thing we were worried about or honestly scared the most of. If that strait ever shut down. There's much been recounted in Media Today, about 20% of all energy products go through there. But there's some other nuances that are just as important. The Gulf cooperation countries in the Arabian Gulf, Saudi Arabia to the south along the Red Sea and then the East Africa market are all consuming markets similar to the United States. There's not a lot of manufacturing of retail goods there. So they rely on their Asia sourcing footwear, furniture, electronics, same as we do. That type of business ceased in all movement on February 28th. Shelves are bare, inventories are way down and folks are not having the choice perishable commodities, et cetera. So we're on day 63 right now of this war. That means probably on average about 6,300 vessels would have traversed this strait. That's energy products, natural gas, it's also aluminum that's made by a company like dubal in the UAE. And we've talked a lot about fertilizers. 30% of the world's fertilizer comes out of that region. Some of it comes here to the United States. All that being said on the commodity sector, many of these prices are set on a world market. All those prices have gone up. So from that perspective, it's again additive to inflation. Tariffs were one thing Here in the U.S. bananas and coffee are up 10% year over year now. The price of gas in Southern California is up 35%. The price of diesel is up 50%. And this is important because about two thirds of all our cargo moves in and out of the port of Los Angeles by truck. Most of our truckers here are small business people. They're not able to absorb a 50% price hike in fuel and they're gonna have a difficult time passing it on if they're competing with big guys.

A (18:56)

Aside from those price increases, have there been any other noticeable impacts of the war in Iran here at the Port of Los Angeles yet?

B (19:06)

I've been really pleased so far about how fluid the cargo has been moving. Early days after the first attacks on February 28, some industry observers said, oh, you know, these ports in Asia are going to get all choked up, they're going to get congested, there'll be lines of ships, et cetera. I was just in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Guangzhou over the last couple weeks and met with a lot of port guys and met with manufacturers, importers, exporters, shipping lines, et cetera, and I was so heartened. What they've done basically at the ports is segmented cargo that was destined to the Middle east off to the side and keeping the cargo running for Trans Pacific out to Europe and the all important inter Asia trade really humming. The other important point is that most of that cargo is still upstream. Soon as this war started Shipping lines ceased all services, manufacturers cut the lines, and cargo that had been produced is just sitting near its origin sites. Now. We'll have to see where this goes, but realistically speaking, the impacts for us are a doubling of the vessel fuel price. Right now. That gets passed on to the importer and ultimately gets passed on to the consumer.

A (20:18)

After the war started, the US Administration issued a waiver for something called the Jones Act. The Jones act is a law that prevents foreign vessels from shipping goods like energy from one US Port to another. Why did the administration issue the waiver and has it had an impact?

B (20:35)

The public statements out of the administration in Washington were, the waiver, the Jones act was going to help gas prices drop. And that has not been the case. And it never really was going to affect it. No unusual activity of a higher percentage foreign flag coming here to the port of Los Angeles in that bulk tanker environment. So we're seeing pretty steady stream of product that's moving in and not a lot of new entries to the trade. The Jones act stipulates American flag vessels with American crews and the ability to go between states. Having foreign flag carriers come in and do some of that business while, you know, you have to look like you're doing something, really had no effect on the price of gasoline or diesel fuel throughout the country.

A (21:17)

As the crisis in Iran continues, what else are you watching out for?

B (21:21)

Well, the health and safety of the crews on all those vessels that are stuck inside the Arabian Gulf, those that may be outside, you know, are they getting enough food and water and medicine? This has got to be extremely trying for these guys. I know we've had some vessels that go in and out, but not nearly enough to clear out that basin as quickly as we want. Sustained fuel prices are now not just impacting my business at ports, but we've seen countries like Vietnam start counting how many days of fuel inventory they have left. Days, not weeks, not months. And we've seen Europe really talking about how these fuel prices and availability, supply of fuel are impacting the airline industry there. The week before I went to Asia, 1700 flights were either canceled or delayed the day before I left Los Angeles. This is real and it's permeating across a number of sectors. The other piece that I'm learning more about, there's a lot of plastics and resins that are produced, especially in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Aramco is a big conglomerate that does a lot of work in this space. We're going to start to see plastic products, products of aluminum. Also, number one, prices will be hiked. But number two, I'm beginning to watch that supply a lot more closely and I think there could be some problems there if this continues to be a protracted war in Iran and that strait not being open to the levels it needs to.

A (22:55)

Stepping away from these immediate crises, I wanted to learn more about how the Port of Los Angeles works.

B (23:01)

We at the Port of Los Angeles are a real estate company. We have 7500 acres of property, 1600 acres of which are marine container facilities. We lease out these properties to private sector interests to facilitate trade and container shipping. Our job is to produce the infrastructure, so our engineers, designers and construction teams prepare these terminals for the private sector tenant that we sign to a lease for 25, 30 years at a time. The terminals typically are tied to the shipping companies and they are responsible for bringing on the equipment. These large cranes that work the ships cargo handling equipment inside the marine terminal. Their employees are all based in these terminals terminal facilities. And the MTOs are charged with the responsibility of hiring the dock workers, the longshoremen, the office clerical unit, as well as the walking bosses or the foreman that manage all of these workers on the ground.

A (24:06)

Gene ports all over the world are under constant pressure to become more productive to lower their costs. I want to talk about robots and what are these things going back and forth that we're looking at?

B (24:20)

These are robots. These automated guided vehicles pick up cargo that has been put onto the terminal tarmac by the longshore crane driver to move into these stacks and be prepared to go outside the terminal either by truck or by rail. It's a GPS based algorithm that allows these machines to move in figure eights, up and down, sideways as they see fit to go to and from these stacks of containers. A perimeter delivery system was created so truck drivers can simply drive into this terminal about a mile, pick up their cargo and move out, reducing truck wait times to almost undetectable amounts.

A (25:06)

Some ports in China and South Korea have become almost completely automated, relying on robots instead of people. The Port of Los Angeles has a unionized workforce. Tell us about the Port of LA's modernization efforts and how you are addressing worker concerns about this kind of job loss.

B (25:23)

Of the 360 ports worldwide that are observed, only about 5% have some assemblance of robotics or automation. Here in Southern California, the ports of LA and Long Beach, 25% of our marine terminals have gone into an automated environment much greater than the global average. And yet dock worker jobs are up 21% during the 12 years that I've been here in LA. Now, our official statement from the city and Port of Los Angeles is the technology is moving faster than it ever has, but we cannot leave the worker behind. And that's why the Port of la, along with the State of California, other partners like the ILW and the Employers association, the pma, are building the nation's first goods movement training campus. Think about that for a minute. We manage about 40% of the nation's imports. The country relies on ports to the tune of 21% of our GDP. And we don't yet have a training campus or curriculum geared to this sector and this part of the industry. We want to make sure that the workers on the docks today are upskilled and reskilled to the newest technology so they can be competitive. We want to be able to attract, recruit and retain workers for the next generation. Now we've got a collective bargaining agreement between the employers association and the dock workers that specifically states that automation is permissible. But there are rules of engagement when you do that. And not everybody operates the same way. There have been facilities that go from conventional to automation and absolutely slash jobs. Others have brought in the automation, increased capacity and helped move the workforce forward with growth. So that's kind of the sweet spot that we want to get to. And it's polarizing because there's just not one proper answer to the concerns of either side communities, elected officials, and it gets a little bit emotional for some. But if we could find a way to grow capacity, because you've got a finite amount of land here, 7,500 acres. If we can grow capacity through automation and it grows jobs in alignment with the bargaining agreement that is in place, I think that's a good starting point for a conversation here on the LA side. We've said very clearly to our private sector tenants and the dock workers union, if you want to do this, it's okay with us. We're going to be in the middle as that honest broker. But you're going to have to come to us hand in hand with a deal so we can go forward with an infrastructure project. Absent that, we're not going to entertain this work until you guys get to the same place.

A (28:07)

What can you tell us about the new types of skills that workers need to develop in order to engage more productively with all of these robots and automation?

B (28:17)

Yeah, there are a couple examples. We've got milestones ahead of us to get to cleaner technology. So by the year 2030, we want to have all 5,000 pieces of cargo handling equipment on our docks be zero emission, whether it be electric, hydrogen, or using some other renewable synthetic fuel. The mechanic who is in that dock worker union used to work with a wrench. Now they're going to have to work with a computer on that newer technology, similar to the folks that work on our cars now. Right. So there's going to need to be some upskilling of mechanics with new machinery. It takes training. The new cranes are taller than ever before, have a wider reach. They have bells and whistles that were not there 10 years ago. And the biggest thing about training to us here is that most of it happens, although sanctioned under that collective bargaining agreement and well funded by the employers, it happens on a live marine terminal at a port. By building this training campus, we're putting folks in a safe environment to learn these skills, get the accreditation and certification, build up the hours of experience before they jump back into a live setting. It's a thing to watch. We've gone out on the water together and looked at the way these guys are moving that cargo around. It's flying. And so if you're a rookie out there, one, you're not going to be able to keep up. But more importantly, two, somebody could get hurt. So that's where we want to train in a separate location, newer equipment, different technology, different protocols, and different way to handle it.

A (30:03)

Gene, is my last question. I have to ask about artificial intelligence. What are some of the ways the Port of Los Angeles is using AI to and how is it having an impact?

B (30:14)

We're trying to see ways that AI can improve our work productivity, not cut back on workers. And I know that's a real part of the anxiety many of us feel right now with all of this deep investment here at the port. I'll give you three examples of what we're doing with AI right now. Digital twins. A lot of the work that we do on the infrastructure side is beneath the water surface. So we're creating a digital twin below the main channel so our naval architects, marine engineers and designers can understand how they have to get after a repair project quicker or how they design a new project. Today we send scuba divers down, take a bunch of underwater pictures, and it literally is in a narrow space, and then try to bring that back into, upload it into computer aided design and have these experts start looking at how they want to do this project. With a digital twin, you could literally look at all 43 miles of that waterfront, go as deep as you need to, 53ft or beyond, and get a good picture as to how you want to attack that Project. Second, we're using geospatial mapping. Think of your drive app on your phone. You know, we look at a drive up for directions or how bad traffic is or how clear it is. With geospatial mapping, we're working with a company in Redlands, California, called esri, Jack Dangermont and the Jet Propulsion Lab, which is a subsidiary of NASA. This is being used for not only just traditional traffic and cargo flows, but now, as the state of California begins a resurfacing project on the Vincent Thomas Bridge, the span that connects the residential area of San Pedro to Terminal island, we're going to have to reroute a lot of traffic for 16 months, and that traffic is never going to look the same twice in one day. So the geospatial mapping is going to help us look at predictive analytics, see where traffic flows are presently, and get messaging out to the public and to the industry around how traffic flows can mitigate delays, but by taking different routes.

A (32:23)

And that's really important for all your truckers that need to come to the port, pick up their cargo, and then take them off somewhere else.

B (32:29)

That's right. And think about it this way, too. There's a traffic jam, road repairs. There's different types of civil work that's going on every day in Southern California freeways and roadways. This is just a little more confined to the port area. Want to minimize delays. These truckers are our first and last mile ambassadors. They will tell our customer how good well or how poorly we did at servicing them. So this is another advantage to doing it. And with a port like this, with so many moving parts of ships, trucks and trains, something's going to be off schedule. So if we could telegraph to that trucker or send them a quick message that your first container that you were supposed to pick up is going to be a little late today, I'm going to automatically move you to the second container on your list and save them time from going back empty. Oh, I think we're going to have some truckers that really like this.

A (33:23)

Okay, I cut you off. You said there were three, so what's the third one?

B (33:27)

The last piece is again around those predictive and prescriptive analytics. With the port optimizer created by Wabtech and us about 10 years ago, we see all kinds of vital statistics of how fast or slow cargo is moving through the port. With some of the models that they've generated, including the new truck reservation system, we could take advantage of latent capacity. There was a time recently where only about 50% of our truck gates were used on a day. And think about the analogy of a restaurant. I've got 10 tables available for both lunch and dinner, but only five families are coming in for each serving. By using this reservation system, we were able to take that up to 75% of all gates that were available. And if you make a truck reservation today at the Port of Los Angeles, you're 95% likely to honor that reservation. That's all done through artificial intelligence and mapping out a day's worth of how many trucks you can handle versus how many hours you're open and then getting the information out to the trucker so they can make that reservation. So here again, if the trucker makes more turns every day, they make more money.

A (34:41)

I love that restaurant analogy. We've all been there. Gene, this has been amazing. Thank you very much.

B (34:47)

What a treat. Chad, great having you out on the water. And thanks for taking time to stop by the port.

A (34:54)

And that is all for Trade talks. A huge thanks to Gene Soroka at the Port of Los Angeles. Thanks as well to Philip Sanfield, David Libatique, and the entire team at the Port of Los Angeles for making my visit so educational. A big thanks as well to Isabel Robertson, our audio producer. Thanks to Melina Kalb, our supervising producer, and thanks to Sam Elbowez and Sarah Allen on digital. Please subscribe to Trade Talks on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Even if you're a longtime listener. Please take two minutes to leave a review. That is how new listeners will find the show. Please order a copy of my new book with Samaya Cain's titled How to Win a Trade War. It's out later in May, but you can pre order it today. That is how to Win a Trade War. See you next week, everybody.