California’s Port Dominance Is Slipping as US Cargo Shifts East

California has suffered a series of economic blows this year, from torrential rains that inundated farmland to the failure of three regional banks. Now the state’s $2.8 trillion freight industry is under threat.

Southern California’s ports have grown up alongside China’s rise as a global trading power, moving almost 40% of containerized imports into the US from Asia for the past two decades. But the pendulum is swinging east as the pandemic’s cargo crush pushed the Los Angeles and Long Beach complex close to the breaking point, allowing ports from New York-New Jersey to Houston to grow their market share.