On June 10th, President Biden delivered a speech at the Port of Los Angeles, congratulating the dock workers and Californian politicians for breaking up the bottleneck in Californian ports.
And today, there are about 40 percent fewer containers clogging the docks on long pe- — for long periods of time than there were last November.
This May was the strongest month in the Port of Los Angeles's history — the strongest month in its history.
And we're helping fund improvements. Because of what my friends in the Congress have done, we passed the — we passed the Infrastructure Bill and we're funding major new initiatives on the docks — on-dock rail systems, the Port of Long Beach — move goods more quickly. And port electrification so communications near the ports can be — and communities can breathe cleaner air because they're using electric machines that are not generating using gas, coal, et cetera.
And everyone applauded.
That last part about not generating using gas, coal, et cetera cracked me up, but I'll try to keep my rant relevant.
Now less than two months later, while Californian ports remain relatively low in the number of docked ships, all the other ports in the United States are packed with ships. Ports across the country are now backlogged with the largest number of cargo-ships waiting to unload ever recorded. American Shipper reported,
If you only look at Los Angeles and Long Beach — the largest container import gateway in America — you'd think shipping congestion has drastically reduced. The number of ships waiting there has fallen to 26 from a high of 109 in January. But in fact, North American port congestion has just re-entered record territory. The offshore traffic jam is once again as bad as it's ever been.
It's almost like after the shipping companies sat at the Californian ports for months, they said,
However, now all the ports are jammed.
Seatrade Maritime that with most ports operating near capacity, containerships can expect to sit at anchor at least 14 days pretty much anywhere in the United States.
Despite spending hundreds of billions of dollars on infrastructure, the supply-chain crisis marches on, and for some reason this song continues to play in my head:
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