The commissioner of the Port of Seattle on Wednesday offered a frightening snapshot of how President Donald Trump’s widespread tariffs could result in a massive economic blow in the weeks ahead.
Ryan Calkins — who predicted a 40% drop in container imports at the ports of Seattle and nearby Tacoma over the next few weeks — told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that, as of about 6 p.m., there were “no container ships” berthed in the Port of Seattle.
“And that happens every once in a while in normal times but it’s pretty rare,” he said.
“And so to see it tonight is, I think, a stark reminder that the impacts of the tariffs have real implications.”
Calkins added that there weren’t longshore workers on the dock unloading merchandise nor were there trains taking goods to inland ports or other cities such as Chicago, Illinois and Des Moines, Iowa.
“That’s hundreds of jobs right here in our region and across the country,” Calkins continued.
He went on to describe ports as the “canary in the coal mine” for the country.
“The canary’s struggling right now,” he said.
Economists have claimed that should America face a recession, the possibility of which Trump has downplayed, it will begin on U.S. docks as the president rallies behind 145% tariffs on imported goods from China.
The fears in Seattle come as the Port of Los Angeles — the busiest in the Western Hemisphere— expects to see container volume drop by more than one-third this week compared to the same time as last year, Axios noted.
On Tuesday, CNN reported that the first ships carrying Chinese goods hit by Trump’s tariffs have arrived in Los Angeles — meaning Americans could be just weeks away from seeing increased prices along with product shortages.
U.S. exports have also plunged when comparing data from a five-week period before Trump’s tariffs announcement to the five weeks afterward, according to an analysis by container-tracking company Vizion that was reported by CNBC.
“We haven’t seen anything like this since the disruptions of summer 2020,” Vizion CEO Kyle Henderson told CNBC.