The San Pedro Bay port complex took its first real tariff hit of 2026 last week, and the numbers landed exactly where drayage operators have been bracing for them. The Port of Los Angeles processed 716,619 TEU in May, down roughly 5 percent year over year. The Port of Long Beach moved 639,160 TEU, off about 8 percent on the same comparison. The damage shows up worst on the loaded import side. LA handled 355,950 loaded import containers in May, down 9 percent. Long Beach moved 299,116 loaded imports, down 13 percent. The combined volume is still up 10.2 percent on a year-to-date basis because the first quarter benefited from frontloaded inventory chasing a tariff deadline, but the month-over-month shift is the signal small carriers need to read.
This is the data point that matters because the import cycle drives 35 to 45 percent of the freight that ends up on a small carrier’s books, whether you run California drayage, Inland Empire warehouse moves, or the long-haul lanes that move repackaged containerized freight to the Midwest and the East Coast. When the boxes stop coming off the ships at the same pace, the tractor that was working the LA Harbor lane on Monday is bidding on a less attractive load by Thursday. The chain reaction does not stop at the port gate, and the carriers who plan for it now have a much better month ahead of them than the ones who hope volume rebounds inside the next two weeks.
The May print closes a chapter that started with January 2026 loaded imports down 13 percent at the Port of LA and ran through a March-April recovery driven by frontloading ahead of policy uncertainty. That recovery has now tapered, and the next two quarters will be a real test of how the West Coast import lanes hold up against the new tariff regime. Carriers who are paying attention know that the spot market reacts to the port count well before national tonnage prints. The question is what to do with that lead time.
What The May Print Actually Says About The Rest Of 2026
The simplest way to read the May number is to subtract the tariff frontloading distortion from Q1 and look at the underlying demand signal. Port of LA Executive Director Gene Seroka has been clear in his public commentary that retailers and manufacturers continue to move goods despite the uncertainty, but he has also signaled that the next wave of imports tied to back-to-school and early holiday merchandise is the variable to watch. According to the Trucking Info coverage of Seroka’s May briefing, the headline number reflects tariff drag pulling against an otherwise stable consumer. The implication for carriers is that the demand floor is not collapsing, but the timing of waves is going to look more uneven than usual for the rest of the year.
The Bloomberg coverage of the port data and the gCaptain reporting on the broader 2026 container outlook both point in the same direction. Imports will likely decline on a year-over-year basis through most of the second half of 2026 as importers shift origin away from tariff-affected geographies and as inventory levels at U.S. distribution centers stay elevated. That does not mean a recession-grade collapse. It does mean the pattern of strong import months interleaved with sharp pullbacks will be the working assumption for any rate planning a small carrier does for Q3 and Q4. Carriers who structured their fleet around steady volume out of San Pedro Bay are going to find themselves with capacity exposed to lanes that suddenly run light without warning.
The other variable worth tracking is the East Coast and Gulf Coast port response. Houston, Savannah, and New York-New Jersey have been quietly absorbing market share from the West Coast for the last two years, and the May San Pedro number gives those ports another opening. Distribution centers in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Texas are positioned to absorb that diverted volume, which means the inland lanes from East Coast and Gulf ports gain at the expense of the West Coast outbound lanes carriers have been working. The shift is not a one-month story. It is a structural rebalancing that the May tariff print accelerates.
The Drayage Picture On The Ground In LA And Long Beach
Drayage rates around the San Pedro Bay complex are already showing the impact. The local turn rate that was holding around $450 to $500 per move through April is sliding back into the low $400s as more chassis sit idle and as drivers compete for shrinking turn volume. The carriers who hauled the strongest contract relationships out of Q1 are insulated. The day-to-day spot drayage operators are the ones feeling the squeeze first. That is the same group that gets squeezed when the cycle reverses, which means the operational answer is to use this slower month to lock down a bigger share of contract-paying customers rather than ride the spot lane down with everyone else.
Chassis dwell times are creeping up, which is the second leading indicator of trouble. When chassis sit at marine terminals longer than 48 hours, the system tightens at exactly the wrong moments and small carriers eat the cost. The smart carriers are pre-pulling, using off-dock yards for stage and store, and pushing shippers for full container yard arrangements where the box stays in the yard until the receiver is actually ready. None of that is new advice, but the May volume drop makes the discipline matter more than it has in 12 months. Idle chassis cost money. Empty trips to the yard cost money. The carrier who runs a tight chassis cycle in a soft month walks away with margin while the loose carrier loses it.
The deeper read on the May data is that loaded export volumes also slipped, which matters for the carriers running outbound containerized freight to the ports. When U.S. ag and manufactured exports decline, the reposition leg for empties gets more expensive. Carriers who have been running balanced inbound and outbound lanes have a buffer. Carriers who built their book around one direction now have to either pay to reposition or run light. Either way, the lane economics for the next 90 days look worse than they did at the start of Q2.
The Inland Empire And Long Haul Knock-On
The Inland Empire warehouse complex is where the May port print really starts to bite for non-drayage carriers. Loaded boxes that cleared the San Pedro Bay terminals get repackaged in the Inland Empire and then move east via dry van or intermodal. When the volume of boxes drops, the repacking work slows. When the repacking slows, the dry van outbound from the Inland Empire goes light. Small carriers who built rates around steady eastbound capacity out of Ontario, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Fontana need to plan for two to four weeks of softer paying loads while the system absorbs the May import dip.
There is a partial offset here that is worth noting. The May port data lands at the same time that the dry van spot market has been pushing higher, with national dry van spot rates breaking into the high $2 per mile range. We covered the dynamics behind that move when dry van spot rates broke out to $2.89 per mile in May, and that demand strength is what is propping up rates even with the port softness on the import side. The combination of softer imports and tighter capacity for the routes that do exist creates a strange mismatch. Carriers who can hold a load board with one foot in Inland Empire outbound and one foot in the broader national market end up with the best mix.
The intermodal side will absorb some of the slack, but not all of it. Class I rail carriers have been adding intermodal capacity on the LA to Chicago and LA to Memphis lanes, and the slower boxes will shift toward rail rather than truck for the longer hauls. That gives small over-the-road carriers another reason to bid on shorter dry van moves out of the West Coast distribution clusters rather than chasing transcon volume that increasingly belongs to rail. Knowing where you can and cannot win in the next 90 days is the difference between a profitable June and a hard one.
The Tariff Variable Inside The May Number
The Supreme Court ruling on tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act is sitting underneath this May number. According to the Port of Los Angeles statement on the ruling, roughly two-thirds of tariffs collected may need to be rescinded, with an estimated $170 billion in question. That is a material amount of money for importers and a meaningful amount of policy uncertainty for the shippers who have been writing carrier tenders. Until there is clarity on which tariffs survive and which get refunded, the import cycle will keep moving in waves. Carriers should expect a pattern of slow-build, sharp-import, and pullback through the rest of 2026, not a smooth recovery curve.
The other tariff angle that affects San Pedro Bay specifically is the country-of-origin shift. Importers are quietly rerouting volume to Vietnam, India, Indonesia, and Mexico. Mexican freight moves through Laredo, El Paso, and the Texas border crossings, which is part of the reason cross-border lane economics have been holding up while West Coast import lanes soften. We unpacked the Mexico volume story in detail when Plan Mexico industrial parks pushed cross-border trucking toward $320 billion by 2031, and that nearshoring trend is the most direct beneficiary of the West Coast port slowdown. Small carriers with a foot in Texas-Mexico lanes have a hedge built in. Carriers without one are exposed.
What To Do Between Now And The June Print
The practical work for a small carrier in the next four weeks falls into three buckets. First, audit your customer mix. Carriers running heavy on spot drayage out of San Pedro should be on the phone with shippers locking in contract or dedicated runs for the second half. The shippers know imports are soft. They are not going to volunteer better contract terms unless a carrier pushes the conversation. Lead the call, do not wait for it.
Second, look at lane diversification. If your truck count is committed to LA Harbor or Long Beach drayage and Inland Empire outbound, take a hard look at the Houston-Dallas triangle, the Texas-Mexico border lanes, and the eastbound lanes out of Savannah or Charleston. Diversification is hard mid-quarter but it is much easier when there is some slack in the system than when capacity is fully booked at higher rates. Use the soft month to test new lanes with one or two trucks before committing harder.
Third, control fixed cost. The May port print does not collapse rates, but it does make every fixed cost line heavier on the P&L. That means renegotiating insurance, refinancing equipment where rates have moved, and tightening fuel surcharge math against the diesel spike that landed earlier in the month. The carriers who do the boring spreadsheet work in May come out the other side of the import dip in much better shape than the ones who just hope volume returns. The official monthly cargo data continues to publish via the Port of Los Angeles container statistics page, and the June print will land roughly three weeks from now. Use the gap to position rather than panic.
Bottom Line
Port of LA processed 716,619 TEU in May, down 5 percent year over year. Port of Long Beach moved 639,160 TEU, down 8 percent. Loaded imports dropped 9 percent at LA and 13 percent at Long Beach, the clearest signal so far that the tariff hit is landing on West Coast freight. The combined complex remains up 10.2 percent year to date because of Q1 frontloading, but the next several months will look uneven as importers reroute origin, work through elevated inventory, and wait for tariff clarity. Carriers running San Pedro Bay drayage should expect rate pressure and chassis dwell tightening. Inland Empire outbound dry van will run light by mid-June. Carriers with cross-border Mexico, East Coast, and Gulf Coast exposure are best positioned to ride out the import softness. Lock contract relationships now, control chassis cycle, and diversify lanes before the June print confirms the pattern.
Questions Carriers Ask
How does a container volume drop at the ports hit drayage carriers?
Fewer boxes means fewer drayage turns, and the competition for what remains pushes rates down quickly. Drayage feels port swings faster than any other segment. If you run the harbor, watching monthly volume reports gives you a short but useful warning of what your weeks will look like.
What is the knock-on effect for inland and long-haul freight?
Port freight feeds the big inland warehouse markets, so a sustained volume drop eventually thins outbound loads from those hubs. The lag between the port print and the inland effect gives carriers time to adjust. Long-haul carriers serving port-fed corridors should treat port data as a leading indicator for their lanes.
How should I adjust if my lanes depend on port freight?
Diversify before you’re forced to, adding customers whose freight doesn’t ride on import volume, like domestic manufacturing or food. Keep your port-connected relationships warm, because volume comes back and shippers remember who stayed. The goal is making a port slump uncomfortable instead of existential.
Keep learning: Shippers Are Locking Up Dedicated Capacity at the Fastest Pace Since 2020: The Dedicated Conversion Play to Run on Your Best Shipper This Month and The 10% Tariff Wall Comes Down July 24: Four Moves Small Carriers Should Make Before the Import Whipsaw Hits Their Lanes.
Innovative Logistics Group
