The Port of Los Angeles, the largest container port in the United States and the country’s leading gateway for imports from China and other Asian countries, had its busiest three-month period on record from July to September, despite persistent uncertainty over tariffs and shifting global trade supply chains. “If there was ever a time for a drum roll, this is it,” said Gene Seroka, Executive Director of the Port of Los Angeles, during a media briefing. “July through September was our best quarter in port history at almost three million TEU. Stretch it back to June, and we moved almost four million container units. That’s the strongest four-month stretch that we’ve ever had,” he added.
Seroka cited several factors behind the increase, including a reduction in tariffs from 2025 levels, strong consumer demand ahead of the festival season and continued operational challenges at the Suez and Panama canals. The port’s imports rose 19% year-on-year in September, while exports increased by a more modest 10%. “Outbound volumes remain softer than normal, which reflects the ongoing challenges facing American farmers and manufacturers,” Seroka noted.
While China’s share of imports through the LA port has declined from roughly 60% in 2018 to a projected 40% in 2026, it remains the port’s largest source of imports, followed by Vietnam. U.S. imports from China totaled USD308 billion in 2025, down close to 30%, according to the U.S. Trade Representative Office. U.S. imports from Vietnam rose 42% in the same period.
Willy Shih, Professor at Harvard Business School, said countries like Vietnam and Mexico have seen “a lot of growth” in their emports to the United States, but they still rely on “Chinese intermediate goods”. “So companies, in some sense, are rearranging the final assembly step while the upstream dependence remains,” he said during a discussion at the LA port media briefing. Speaking about last month’s summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington, Shih said that the economic outcome remained modest and both sides had decided to “kick the can down the road”, as reported by the South China Morning Post.
