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Supply Chain by the Numbers

May 9, 2025

Supply Chain by the Numbers for May 9, 2025

Ports of LA, Long Beach Feeling the Tariffs. Tough Times for UA Manufacturers. End of the di minimis Import Progam is here. MODEX Show Honored for Growth


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44%
That was the combined drop in docked container ships last week at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach this week as they begin to feel the impact of tariffs imposed on foreign goods by the Trump administration. “We are at a point of inflection. It’s kind of dire,” Mario Cordero, port of Long Beach CEO, said Monday. “What happens here is going to be an indication of what's going to occur in the supply chain. We have less vessel calls, less cargo now.” The port of Long Beach is already reporting a huge drop in traffic this week with 34 canceled sailings from ocean carriers to Long Beach. The neighboring port of Los Angeles is also seeing 36 cancellations.

$800

That is the current threshold for the value of so-called di minimis shipments into the US that have been imported duty-fee for years. But the program is scheduled to end at just after midnight Eastern time on Friday for goods made in China and Hong Kong, after President Trump in early April ordered the end of the policy. That will now subject the shipments to the 145% tariff on goods made in China – or whatever it winds up being. Use of the de minimis provision has skyrocketed in recent years with a surge of goods from bargain Chinese sites Shein and Temu, both of which already have been raising prices ahead of the exemption’s end. About 1.36 billion shipments using the de minimis provision entered the US in fiscal year 2024, up from 637 million just four years earlier.



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That’s how many months out of the last 30 that US manufacturing has expanded, indicated by a score on the index from the US Federal Reserve Bank of above 50. The index showed contraction again in April, with a score of 48.7. The only two months of expansion in that 30-month stretch came in January and February of this year. The New Orders Index was again also in contraction territory, registering 47.2, below 50 for the third month in a row following a three-month period of expansion.



42.2%
That was the sharp rise in exhibitor floor space achieved by the MODEX tradeshow in Atlanta in 2024. Why is that news here in May 2025? Because the show, owned by the MHI trade organization, was awarded “The Fastest-Growing Non-Annual Show by Percentage of Growth in Net Square Feet in 2024” at the recent award summit in Orlando held by Trade Show Executive. MODEX certainly benefitted from the high level of interest in warehouse automation. The show is produced b MHI in even years, with MHI holding the similar ProMat show in Chicago in odd numbered years.

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