‘Exports to China look dismal,’ leader of busiest US seaport says

FILE PHOTO: A general view of the Port of Los Angeles, California November 29, 2012. REUTERS/Lori Shepler/File Photo · Reuters

By Lisa Baertlein

Wed, February 18, 2026 at 5:49 AM GMT+9 2 min read

By Lisa Baertlein

LOS ANGELES, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Exports from the Port of Los Angeles, the busiest U.S. gateway for ocean trade, fell 8% in January ‌to the lowest monthly output in nearly three years, Executive Director Gene ‌Seroka said on Tuesday.

“Exports to China look dismal,” Seroka said after the Port of Los Angeles handled 104,297 ​20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of loaded export containers in January.

President Trump’s aggressive use of tariffs has upended global trade and retaliatory trade duties from China and other nations have hit U.S. exporters like farmers particularly hard.

Soybean shipments from the Port of Los Angeles to China dropped ‌80% last year, Seroka said, ⁠adding that the trade did not improve in November or December, following discussions between representatives of the two nations on the sidelines at ⁠the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit.

“There’s not much that the United States is exporting to China these days,” said trade expert Chad Bown, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute of Economics, ​who added ​that outgoing U.S. shipments of everything from ​beef and corn to crude oil ‌and coal also fell in 2025.

Closely watched imports to the Port of Los Angeles came in at 421,594 TEUs in January, down 13% from the unusually strong result the year earlier, Seroka said.

So far, imports in February appear relatively flat compared with a year earlier. Imports will slow in March due to China factory closures for the Lunar ‌New Year holiday, he said.

Still, Seroka expects total ​first-quarter volume at the port to fall less than ​10% versus the year-earlier quarter, when ​U.S. importers were rushing in goods before President Donald Trump’s threatened ‌tariffs on countries like China took effect.

“I ​don’t see the economy ​or cargo volume dropping off a cliff after that, and even though holiday sales were softer than we would have liked, I don’t see a dire ​situation,” Seroka said, referring to ‌lackluster U.S. December retail sales that signaled potential weakness in consumer spending ​that drives about 70% of the nation’s total economic activity.

(Reporting by Lisa Baertlein; ​Editing by Chris Reese and Nick Zieminski)

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