As you probably know by now, President Joe Biden announced in mid-October that the Port of Los Angeles would begin operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week in order to deal with a backlog of cargo that needs to be moved off the docks, and to help reduce a queue of dozens of containerships sitting anchored in the San Pedro Bay. And while the announcement was certainly a welcome one for those in the maritime goods movement industry, don’t expect the backlog to be cleared overnight. Or within a week. Or maybe not even by the end of…

You might want to start your Christmas shopping early. That’s the big takeaway from the ongoing situation at major seaports on the West Coast right now, particularly at Los Angeles-Long Beach, the biggest and busiest port complex in North America. According to reports, shipping traffic is up 50% from pre-pandemic levels, contributing to the bottleneck. Another contributing factor is a shortage of drivers to haul goods away from port terminals, as well as a shortage of trailers to affix containers to and of storage space at terminals. “The American’s buying strength is so strong and epic, that we can’t absorb all this cargo into the domestic supply chain,” Port of…