Posted on February 12, 2025
According to the latest Global Port Tracker report, a collaborative effort between the National Retail Federation (NRF) and Hackett Associates, revealed that in December 2024, US ports processed approximately 2.14m twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), exhibiting a robust 14.4% year-over-year growth.
This performance marked a slight decrease from November and contributed to an annual total of 25.5m TEUs for 2024, an increase of 14.8% from the previous year and just shy of the record set in 2021 during the pandemic.
NRF supply chain and customs policy vice-president Jonathan Gold said: “Supply chains are complex. Retailers continue to engage in diversification efforts. Unfortunately, it takes significant time to move supply chains, even if you can find available capacity. While we support the need to address the fentanyl crisis at our borders, new tariffs on China and other countries will mean higher prices for American families.
“Retailers have engaged in mitigation strategies to minimise the potential impact of tariffs, including frontloading of some products, but that can lead to increased challenges because of added warehousing and related costs. We hope to resolve our outstanding border security issues as quickly as possible because there will be a significant impact on the economy if increased tariffs are maintained and expanded.”
The urgency for retailers to import goods has been fuelled by several factors, including the possibility of a port strike along the East Coast and Gulf Coast in January and the anticipation of tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump.
