A chunk of the Post Alley article is spent on the observation that a single stevedoring company controls operations at all terminals in Seattle, but not in Tacoma; yet they're both part of the same port alliance.
BJones12 · 2h ago
As is tradition, I'll plug the latest episode of What's Going On With Shipping:
> In fact, the Northwest Seaport Alliance … said it was so far seeing more vessels call into port in 2025 than in 2024, with three more calls in the first quarter of 2025 than during the same period in 2024.
> However, the ships calling into port were arriving with unpredictable volumes of cargo — sometimes 30% less than anticipated
And Snopes felt comfortable rating “mostly false” to the top level claim? I get that they’re trying to navigating treacherous waters, but “there’s still ships, they’re just 1/3 empty” is as much support for the top level claim as it is contradiction
mtillman · 1h ago
Perfect use of treacherous waters. Kudos.
lurk2 · 1h ago
If I drink 30% of a glass of water, is the glass of water empty?
Retric · 1h ago
These aren’t static systems.
Keep removing 1 cup of water and add 2/3 cups and eventually it goes to zero. For a port that very well may be sending people home early on an ‘empty’ port. Even if tomorrow brings in new ships for now it looks like a ghost town.
And then at one port on one day zero cargo ships showed up.
lurk2 · 1h ago
> These aren’t static systems.
That is irrelevant.
ok_dad · 32m ago
If I drink 30% less water overall, I’d be pretty unhealthy.
gamblor956 · 1h ago
No, but if the claim is that the glass no longer has any boba it's irrelevant how much liquid you drink.
The specific claim was that the port no longer had any container ships on that specific day. And that claim was true.
Yes, there were other ships in the port. But that's irrelevant. A container ship is a specific kind of cargo ship used for international cargo shipments. In an article about international shipments, that distinctions matters.
plopz · 1h ago
its closer to empty than before you drank
anigbrowl · 52m ago
Not the first time their headline has been at odds with their content. I've never really been a fan of this particular outlet, even in their early days I found their self-absorbed writing style insufferable. They strike me as pedantic rather than informative.
lowbloodsugar · 1h ago
Snopes has been pwnd. It now adheres to the standard of literal truth with a political bias. So if someone posts “Bernie Sanders has 30,000 at a rally” (true) but the image is of a different (also true) rally but on a different date, then Snopes just says “it’s false”. Not “true, but the image is wrong”. Not informative, like “Bernie did have 30,000 people attend but this image is from XYZ”. Just says FALSE! Same here.
echoangle · 1h ago
Not really, the claim was „the port is empty“, not „the ships arriving are empty“. If there are still ships arriving, the claim is false.
kristjansson · 1h ago
Most of what comprises a port is infrastructure for handling containers and bulk cargo. If cargo volumes are down, some fraction of that infrastructure is disused, or used below its capacity. That a ship was at berth is cold comfort to the longshoremen, truck drivers, etc. who expected to work that cargo, nevermind to the people that expected to, y’know, purchase and consume those goods.
Is 30% underutilized / partially disused tantamount to empty? Maybe not. But it’s in the ballpark in a way the snopes rating undersells.
HotHotLava · 1h ago
That's why it's just "mostly" false, but 'empty' is a word with a specific meaning, and claim here was that the port is literally empty of ships. (or, in the case of the Twitter message they show, that there's only one single ship in the harbor)
lurk2 · 1h ago
> But it’s in the ballpark
It is not remotely in the ballpark. The word “empty” is not understood to mean “70% full” anywhere in the English-speaking world.
danesparza · 2h ago
The slopes article was about a claim in April.
This article was written in May, and directly quotes Seattle port commissioner Ryan Calkins.
BJones12 · 2h ago
No, the original claim was "as of April 29, 2025", which was false and will always be false.
Perhaps they should make another page for the newest claims. But again, the situation is very different than this article's headline.
tokai · 2h ago
Seems like they are debunking that port is empty, while the article of this thread states that there are no container ships. Lots of cargo isn't moved by container ships.
TheBozzCL · 1h ago
Absolutely off-topic, but I started browsing Snopes’ tracking consent options and they use an insane amount of vendors. It took me longer to scroll through the list than reading the article itself.
I've been watching What's Going on With Shipping (https://www.youtube.com/@wgowshipping). He's a professor and a former merchant mariner. More importantly, he's super sober about the facts of the situation and frankly has a better overall understanding of logistics than a random journalist. I'm tired of the sensationalism of every damn thing, and at least this guy's channel gives a more realistic perspective.
Highly recommend watching his stuff if "shipping" is your new sudden "expertise" because it's the hot new thing the media cycle wants you to focus on.
danesparza · 2h ago
I've been watching that channel, too. Good stuff.
But calling this "a random journalist" when the article directly quotes Seattle port commissioner Ryan Calkins is minimizing the truth.
From the article:
"I can see it right over my shoulder here, I'm looking out at the Port of Seattle right now, and we currently have no container ships at berth," Seattle port commissioner Ryan Calkins told CNN on Wednesday.
"That happens every once in a while at normal times, but it's pretty rare," he added. "And so to see it tonight is I think a stark reminder that the impacts of the tariffs have real implications."
firesteelrain · 1h ago
"That happens every once in a while..."
Are we looking at this moment as one of those times? It sounds like he is unsure if it is truly tariff impacts or not if he has seen it before.
refulgentis · 1h ago
Idk the whole discussion is hard for me to parse.
- Any one-off data point could be just random decrease or tariff impacts and we do not have a forward-looking time machine to accumulate more data
- It doesn't really shed any light at all if volumes are less or more: both outcomes can be spun as a success (if they're less, great, American Juche continues unimpeded, if they're more, great, then we just debate if the manufacturers ("China") are "paying for" the tariffs by decreasing list prices to the importer enough that the importer can maintain the same price for customers) ("China" cannot literally pay for the tariffs, they are paid for by the US company or individual accepting the shipment from the dock)
It's sort of like if it was February 2020, Wuhan was overrun and Italy was exploding, and people spent a lot of time in the nuances of if the US double digit case was up more this week than it was last week or two weeks ago)
firesteelrain · 1h ago
Spot on. Micro-analyzing week-to-week data in a system with lags, noise, and strategic behavior doesn’t help.
People crave conclusions with early, messy data.
ncr100 · 1h ago
I'm worried that Trump will use this impending crisis to enact some distracting and worse event for the United States.
Historically he does this, use outrageous distractions to diffuse negative attention from his perceived failures.
electrondood · 1h ago
And then the courts are like "no, you don't get to do that."
What kind of master negotiator creates a deadline that only applies to himself?
9283409232 · 1h ago
Trump has been ignoring the courts. Why would he stop now?
mmazing · 1h ago
He found the loophole that courts hate!
snozolli · 2h ago
I find it odd that recent articles are always about the Port of Seattle. From a quick Google search, it looks like the busiest US ports are Los Angeles, Long Beach, Port of New York, Port of Savannah, then Port of Seattle. As of 2018, the Port of Los Angeles alone was almost 3x busier than the Port of Seattle.
Not that it isn't worth noting, but I'm much more interested in overall volume across all of the nation's ports, and especially the West Coast ports.
kristjansson · 2h ago
LA is down 32% YoY this week[0].
But also LA and Long Beach are effectively a single port, so per your enumeration … Seattle is the second biggest port on the west coast? Seems like that’d be one to look at when we’re talking about transpacific trade?
[0]: https://volumes.portoptimizer.com/ . NB The predictions for subsequent weeks are based on historical data AFAICT, and haven’t been accurate. The actual are good data though.
snozolli · 1h ago
But also LA and Long Beach are effectively a single port, so per your enumeration … Seattle is the second biggest port on the west coast?
Long Beach has almost the traffic as Los Angeles, so by your logic Seattle is only 1/6 the volume.
Seems like that’d be one to look at when we’re talking about transpacific trade?
Which one? I would be looking at LA and LB.
bobthepanda · 2h ago
IIRC there was some speculation that a dip in container volumes would lead to less calls at smaller ports since there would be more room available at larger ports, and reducing port calls both reduces fees and travel times.
joezydeco · 55m ago
Friend of mine is in the commercial real estate business, leases lots of warehouses to big names. He says he's seeing a LOT of uptake on the east coast: Savannah, Jacksonville FL, Charleston.
A lot of companies are shifting to production in India, Pakistan, Vietnam, and it's easier to ship through Suez to the east coast from there.
huhkerrf · 2h ago
Not that it invalidates your point, but you're missing a lot of ports. Houston, South Louisiana, Mobile, Beaumont, etc. Seattle is actually 17th by foreign import tonnage.
firesteelrain · 1h ago
This shows port traffic increasing by 56% when compared to the prior year for the time period of May 18-24 based on the number of scheduled vessels and twenty foot equivalent unit (TEU). What's really going on if tariffs were having a major detrimental impact?
9283409232 · 1h ago
The uptick can be explained by this story[0]. As trade talks begin, exporters want to be ready to begin shipping ASAP. It remains to be seen if this will volume will come through depending on the results of these trade talks and tariffs.
I have been looking for an explanation to the US empty ports news. The best one I came with is that ships have been switching their destination ports to some that they could reach before the tariffs or some that have available tariff-free storage where the cargo can stay until Trump backpedals.
The total cargo volume seems to be falling only now, what still may be just noise.
Cerium · 1h ago
My understanding is that ship tarrifs are calculated at the time of departure, not arrival. This supports the delayed volume reduction since we see the change 22 to 40 days delayed (Pacific transit time).
foobarian · 2h ago
Right, be interesting to see if the departure volume also dropped or how long it lags behind arrivals.
gamblor956 · 2h ago
The simple explanation is that many (but not all) exporters simply stopped exporting things in April (as those shipments would have arrived in May, after the tariffs took effect). And many of the factories overseas have cut back on production, especially of low-value goods most affected by tariffs. Smaller ports like Seattle generally handle the overflow from the bigger ports, so they're the first to be affected by the reduction in cargo traffic.
Even if tariffs are reduced/eliminated, there will still be a lag of 3-6 weeks before destination-port cargo traffic picks up again, assuming that there is product overseas ready to be shipped.
Might be because more southern ports handle a wider variety of cargo origins (e.g., South America), whereas most cargo to Seattle is from China? Just speculation.
firesteelrain · 1h ago
Savannah is one of the busiest container ports in the United States. China is the largest trading partner. Other countries are Vietnam, South Korea, India, Japan, Germany, UK, Netherlands, Italy, France, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Argentina, Canada, Turkey, Indonesia, and Thailand. Pretty much year to year, TEU has been steadily increasing not decreasing. March was up over the previous year despite tariff threats back then.
Still don't have updated data for April and May published.
tokai · 2h ago
I don't follow you. You can find numerous articles about cargo rates falling for those ports as well.
snozolli · 1h ago
I don't follow you
What's not to follow? Numerous articles have been published with sensational headlines like "the Port of Seattle is empty". It's the smallest port on the West Coast.
As others have posted, LA is down 35%. That's useful information, not "this much smaller port is empty!"
Seattle/Tacoma Seaport schedule: https://www.nwseaportalliance.com/cargo-operations/vessel-sc...
This article from Dec, '24 says port volume is expected to be lower than pandemic levels until 2029. A lot of chatter around the issue centers on local politics and leaders: https://www.postalley.org/2024/12/26/seattles-port-faces-a-c...
https://youtu.be/QCyB-Ym0ryk?t=947
(the timestamp links to the "May 2025 Estimate" chapter)
> However, the ships calling into port were arriving with unpredictable volumes of cargo — sometimes 30% less than anticipated
And Snopes felt comfortable rating “mostly false” to the top level claim? I get that they’re trying to navigating treacherous waters, but “there’s still ships, they’re just 1/3 empty” is as much support for the top level claim as it is contradiction
Keep removing 1 cup of water and add 2/3 cups and eventually it goes to zero. For a port that very well may be sending people home early on an ‘empty’ port. Even if tomorrow brings in new ships for now it looks like a ghost town.
And then at one port on one day zero cargo ships showed up.
That is irrelevant.
The specific claim was that the port no longer had any container ships on that specific day. And that claim was true.
Yes, there were other ships in the port. But that's irrelevant. A container ship is a specific kind of cargo ship used for international cargo shipments. In an article about international shipments, that distinctions matters.
Is 30% underutilized / partially disused tantamount to empty? Maybe not. But it’s in the ballpark in a way the snopes rating undersells.
It is not remotely in the ballpark. The word “empty” is not understood to mean “70% full” anywhere in the English-speaking world.
This article was written in May, and directly quotes Seattle port commissioner Ryan Calkins.
Perhaps they should make another page for the newest claims. But again, the situation is very different than this article's headline.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43844708 ("Port of Los Angeles says shipping volume will plummet 35% next week (cnbc.com)" — 657 comments)
Highly recommend watching his stuff if "shipping" is your new sudden "expertise" because it's the hot new thing the media cycle wants you to focus on.
But calling this "a random journalist" when the article directly quotes Seattle port commissioner Ryan Calkins is minimizing the truth.
From the article:
"I can see it right over my shoulder here, I'm looking out at the Port of Seattle right now, and we currently have no container ships at berth," Seattle port commissioner Ryan Calkins told CNN on Wednesday.
"That happens every once in a while at normal times, but it's pretty rare," he added. "And so to see it tonight is I think a stark reminder that the impacts of the tariffs have real implications."
Are we looking at this moment as one of those times? It sounds like he is unsure if it is truly tariff impacts or not if he has seen it before.
- Any one-off data point could be just random decrease or tariff impacts and we do not have a forward-looking time machine to accumulate more data
- It doesn't really shed any light at all if volumes are less or more: both outcomes can be spun as a success (if they're less, great, American Juche continues unimpeded, if they're more, great, then we just debate if the manufacturers ("China") are "paying for" the tariffs by decreasing list prices to the importer enough that the importer can maintain the same price for customers) ("China" cannot literally pay for the tariffs, they are paid for by the US company or individual accepting the shipment from the dock)
It's sort of like if it was February 2020, Wuhan was overrun and Italy was exploding, and people spent a lot of time in the nuances of if the US double digit case was up more this week than it was last week or two weeks ago)
People crave conclusions with early, messy data.
Historically he does this, use outrageous distractions to diffuse negative attention from his perceived failures.
What kind of master negotiator creates a deadline that only applies to himself?
Not that it isn't worth noting, but I'm much more interested in overall volume across all of the nation's ports, and especially the West Coast ports.
But also LA and Long Beach are effectively a single port, so per your enumeration … Seattle is the second biggest port on the west coast? Seems like that’d be one to look at when we’re talking about transpacific trade?
[0]: https://volumes.portoptimizer.com/ . NB The predictions for subsequent weeks are based on historical data AFAICT, and haven’t been accurate. The actual are good data though.
Long Beach has almost the traffic as Los Angeles, so by your logic Seattle is only 1/6 the volume.
Seems like that’d be one to look at when we’re talking about transpacific trade?
Which one? I would be looking at LA and LB.
A lot of companies are shifting to production in India, Pakistan, Vietnam, and it's easier to ship through Suez to the east coast from there.
[0] https://gcaptain.com/as-trade-talks-begin-chinese-exporters-...
The total cargo volume seems to be falling only now, what still may be just noise.
Even if tariffs are reduced/eliminated, there will still be a lag of 3-6 weeks before destination-port cargo traffic picks up again, assuming that there is product overseas ready to be shipped.
LA Port is down 35 percent so far.
https://gaports.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Monthly-TEU-T...
Still don't have updated data for April and May published.
What's not to follow? Numerous articles have been published with sensational headlines like "the Port of Seattle is empty". It's the smallest port on the West Coast.
As others have posted, LA is down 35%. That's useful information, not "this much smaller port is empty!"