Economics
Trump's Trade War Comes With an Unexpected Bonus: More Trade
- West Coast ports are busy as retailers push to beat tariffs
- Concerns are growing that trade will slow once the rush ends
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A few days before Christmas, the container ship “SM Shanghai” was steaming toward California’s Port of Long Beach. Just ahead and coming to the end of an 11-day journey from China, the “Ever Lucent” was headed for the nearby Port of Los Angeles, where the “Thomas Jefferson” was preparing to sail in the opposite direction for Xiamen.
The global economy, in other words, was chugging along nicely on one of the world’s busiest sea lanes. Trade wars be damned.