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Shipping cost index reaches 11-year high

Aug 25, 2021
The Baltic Dry Index tracks how much it costs to ship materials long distances.
A container ship is unloaded at the Port of Oakland in California. The Baltic Dry Index, which tracks the cost of shipping materials long distances, is at a high level amid congestion at Chinese ports.
Justin Sullivan via Getty Images

Congestion at U.S. ports means there's now a shortage of shipping containers

Aug 11, 2021
The lack of available space means that if you can get a container, you'll pay more for shipping what's in it.
Morris MacMatzen via Getty Images

Infrastructure plan would invest in U.S. ports

Mar 31, 2021
The modernization plan could expand port capacity and create jobs along the supply chain.
Container ships outside the Port of Long Beach in California.
David McNew/Getty Images

As e-commerce booms, U.S. ports face traffic jams

Nov 23, 2020
A federal commission is investigating.
Containers are offloaded from a ship at the Port of Los Angeles, the nation's busiest.
Mario Tama/Getty Images

What the new coronavirus means for America's busiest port complex

Mar 5, 2020
"We've had 41 vessel cancellations from the middle of February through April 1," said Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles.
The Port of Los Angeles, the nation's busiest container port, in November 2019.
Mario Tama/Getty Images

Trade whiplash costs businesses

Aug 15, 2019
Importers, shippers and American ports are struggling to stay on top of the ups and downs of the U.S.-China trade war.
Workers prepare a container at the port in Qingdao, China's eastern Shandong province, in earlier this year.
STR/AFP/Getty Images

Tariff jitters grow at Washington state port

Sep 12, 2018
The port of Vancouver handles the West Coast's second-largest volume of imported steel, now subject to a 25 percent duty.
ILWU Local 4 President Cager Clabaugh says the tariffs are already hurting work at the port. An order for 6,000 tons of copper ore on route to China was recently canceled. The mountains of copper now sit unused in a warehouse at the Port of Vancouver.
Molly Solomon/OPB

For public good, not for profit.

U.S. ports are consolidating, as shipping lines have

Apr 5, 2017
The container-shipping industry is more consolidated than ever. As of this month, the world’s top ocean carriers are now mostly in three major alliances, set to control 90 percent of seaborne cargo. That changes the game for many of the country’s ports, who are themselves beginning to work together.  Click the audio player above to […]

As unions decline, dockworkers still have clout

Feb 23, 2015
Their union has the power to shut down all 29 ports on the West Coast.

What today's longshoremen do

Dec 28, 2012
A strike by East Coast dockworkers has been put off at least 30 days. These union members are often highly skilled, and they're critical to vital bottlenecks of global trade: ports.