The Port of Los Angeles reported its strongest quarter on record between July and September, after moving nearly 3 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), besting the previous record set in that same quarter last year. 

The port's third quarter numbers were in spite of a 7.5% year-over-year dip in TEUs in September, as the peak shipping season drew to a close. Port of LA executive director Gene Seroka warned that "ongoing turbulent negotiations" over tariffs could also intensify an expected dip in cargo volumes over the final three months of 2025. 

“As trade policy unfolds, we can only predict more unpredictability,” Seroka said in an October 15 briefing. "The supply chain has been on a roller coaster all year, and that ride continues."

Seroka spoke of additional concerns over recently-implemented fees against Chinese owned and operated vessels calling American ports, given that 20% of ships that call the Port of LA are made in China. Tariffs on Chinese-built cranes and other equipment could also cause problems for the port's procurement operations, given that there's already a slim manufacturing base for shipyard machinery. Seroka estimates that nearly half of the port's shoreside cranes were manufactured in China, and that the port has more than 5,000 other pieces of Chinese-made equipment on the ground today.