Posted on April 24, 2024
The Port of Baltimore is likely to lose at least $6.5 billion of export-import trade this month due to the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge late last month.
Last April, in 2023, the fast-growing and vital Eastern Seaboard port handled $6.8 billion in two-way trade, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Census Bureau data for this April will not be released until early June.
In addition to being one of the nation’s fastest-growing ports over the last decade, Baltimore is the leading U.S. port for a host of exports and imports, as I previously wrote.
The hope is that the channel can be reopened by the end of the month, the Associated Press has reported.
Even if that occurs, the total economic impact will clearly be much larger than the total of exports that cannot leave the port and imports that cannot arrive due to a channel blocked by the container ship Dali.
The Dali, which struck the bridge, and the thousands of pounds of steel from the bridge that fell onto the ship and into the channel is still being cleared. In addition, the bridge itself, if it can be repaired, is not likely to be fully operational, quite possibly, for several years, according to early reports.
In addition, like a pebble dropped in a pond, the ripples of economic damage will extend outward to include logistics companies and agencies and the thousands of men and women they employ as well as other service providers — and then those who count on the logistics companies and service providers to fuel their companies and support their tens of thousands of employees.
This is a ranking of the top U.S. seaports along the Eastern Seaboard by value, through the first two months of 2024, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
The port, which first surpassed $80 billion in annual export-import trade in 2023 after first surpassing $70 billion the year before, was already showing a downturn in trade this year.
Through the first two months of the year, the most recent Census data available, total exports and imports were down 10.56%. Exports, at $3.04 billion, had fallen 14.16% while imports, at $8.82 billion, were down 9.25%.
On the import side, the two largest declines were in the value of self-propelled construction equipment, such as front-end loaders, and radioactive elements and isotopes, most commonly enriched uranium for nuclear power plants. Those two accounted for declines of $152.71 million and $139.03 million, respectively, or just under a third of the total loss of $899.93 million.
Passenger vehicles, the most valuable import into the port and a category in which it leads the nation, increased slightly, up 3.82%, which equated to $124.98 million over the first two months of 2022.
On the export side, the $501.60 million decline could largely be attributed to the second most valuable export, liquid natural gas, down $127.55 million (27.86%) and passenger vehicles, the third most valuable export, down $188.02 million (381.7%).
Passenger vehicle imports rose slightly in value but self-propelled construction machinery declined.
LNG and passenger vehicle imports fell through the first two months of the year, the latest Census Bureau data available.
