California ports recently postponed a daily container penalty as Chinese cargo vessels began rerouting to the East Coast.
On the Monday following Christmas, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach delayed imposing a $100 per day Container Dwell Fee on cargo not hauled away within nine days. The latest avoidance of leveling charges is the eighth delay since the White House urged port authorities to penalize companies. Idling cargo has declined in recent weeks, but at least 40 percent of containers reportedly sat beyond the nine-day maximum before daily fines were supposed to be meted out.
“As expected, progress has eased due to year-end holidays,” a Port of L.A. statement indicated.
The number of idling cargo vessels reached more than 110 by some accounts, and reports point to that number hovering around 100 off the coast heading into 2022.
“The situation on the ground is improving. But on the water, it’s not yet improving,” Flexport COO Sanne Manders reportedly said. “The front end of the traffic jam starts driving, where the back end is still backing up.”
Although officials are touting steady progress, Chinese sources indicate the Asian manufacturing giant has merely rerouted ships to the East Coast. According to an article in the Chinese Communist Party State Council’s English language publication, China Daily, “Cargo ships from China are figuring out that instead of waiting 10 days anchored off the coast of California to unload their freight, it may make more sense to travel the breadth of the United States — to the East Coast.”
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy reportedly agreed that container ships bound for the U.S. had been redirected to the Port of Newark, among other Atlantic Coast locations.
“It is now nearly 25 percent faster for ships from China to call upon this port than the ports on the West Coast,” Gov. Murphy reportedly said. “It is anything but a direct line from China to New Jersey. And yet a ship leaving China today can save itself nearly two weeks’ total time by logging thousands of additional miles and coming here, rather than making a beeline across the Pacific.”
The New York-New Jersey port ranks as the third-largest in terms of container traffic, behind Los Angeles and Long Beach. Over the last 10 years, the Port of Newark enjoyed infrastructure investments of $425 million that included dredging and another $44 million in roadway construction was planned before the $1.2 trillion federal infrastructure package passed into law.
“We will be undertaking a widening of the Turnpike around our ports to keep traffic moving, and not just the trucks leaving port, but also the cars carrying port workers to their jobs along with the millions of other travelers,” Gov. Murphy reportedly said.
The Port of Newark set monthly records for offloading and transporting containers during the fall and the annual uptick is expected to exceed 22 percent. While California’s busiest ports continue to struggle to move containers efficiently, Newark’s infrastructure investments appear to be paying dividends. Reports indicate the Port of Newark offloads 65 percent of large ships carrying 12,000 containers in under 48 hours.
Source: hellenicshippingnews.com
With everyone and everything moving away from California, the woke liberal mob will bankrupt itself and then cry victim.
And there you have it. Cut CA out of the equation and much of the trouble dries up. Even China recognizes that if they spend extra money on fuel and time to get to our east coast, they still save time over sitting around waiting for CA ports to do their job. CA is a cancer on the rest of the country.
Idiot.