Washington ports brace for fallout from U.S.-China trade war

Port officials in Seattle and Tacoma say they’re preparing for potentially significant disruptions as the impacts of President Donald Trump’s renewed trade war with China begin to ripple through Washington’s seaports and economy.

Port officials told KIRO Newsradio they anticipate a spike in container ships from China bypassing Puget Sound ports and rerouting shipments to ports in Canada, where companies can avoid up to 145% tariffs imposed by the Trump Administration on many Chinese products. The most immediate impact would to port workers, including longshoremen responsible for leading and unloading containers from container ships both inbound and outbound.

However, there is also growing concern that Washington farmers and agricultural workers could experience negative economic impacts, especially during harvest months, if Chinese companies stop buying products like apples, soy, berries, and hops over high prices.

“The reality is, there will be jobs lost,” President of the Port of Tacoma Commission, John McCarthy, said. “There will be an impact to economic development and family-wage jobs.”

Washington ports prepare for leftover agricultural products

Both ports said they are also preparing to deal with agricultural products left sitting at a terminal if a Chinese company cancels an order.

“And that literally looks like helping move cargo that’s stuck on the terminal, getting it onto the trucks and helping it get back,” President of the Port of Seattle Commission, Toshiko Hasegawa, said.

More than 40% of jobs in Washington are connected to international trade and commerce. As tariffs rise, the effects are being felt far beyond the waterfront and farmers, but also logistics workers, small business owners, and even coffee drinkers. McCarthy said overall cargo volumes at Washington’s seaports were up last month about 28% compared to the same time period in 2024, but he attributes that increase to foreign companies shipping more in anticipation of coming tariffs. Now that tariffs are in place, McCarthy and Hasegawa predict imports will start to slow significantly.

“People will divert to skip over U.S. tariffs, importing through Canada instead,” Hasegawa said. “We are not new to this fight. We are still feeling the impacts from the first go-around in 2018.”

Looking at previous U.S.-China trade war

In 2018, during the last U.S.-China trade war and subsequent Puget Sound seaports lost about 8% of their market share as ships rerouted cargo to Canadian ports to avoid U.S. tariffs. She said since then, Canadian ports invested more money into their own port infrastructure and workforce, and the Port of Seattle has yet to recover its market loss.

Both Tacoma and Seattle ports said they are also starting to see increases in so-called “blank sailings’ from China. Blank sailings refer to shipments bound for a specific seaport that are canceled either before the ship sets sail or mid-sailing, and so far in April, Hasegawa said they are seeing more blank sailings than normal, which she said is not typical.

McCarthy said blank sailings threaten recent economic boosts, including an increase in the volume of cars imported to the U.S. through the Port of Tacoma. Last year, McCarthy said 336,000 cars were delivered to the U.S. through the Port of Tacoma, so many that Tacoma had to move a portion of those cars to Seattle to store. The recent 25% tariff placed on car imports threatens to drive the number of car imports down. McCarthy said once that business is lost, it will be close to impossible to get back.

Future impacts of tariffs

Only time and key shipping dates will reveal the real impact of tariffs on both ports. Hasegawa and McCarthy say agriculture harvests, back to back-to-school supplies, and clothing in the fall will be important indicators that tariffs are impacting the ports—along with trade and commerce. However, they are not waiting for proof of what they predict will happen eventually.

Hasegawa said a team of port representatives recently traveled to Washington, D.C., and urged White House officials to include language in trade policy that would require all U.S.-bound cargo to clear customs at American ports.

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