The U.S. Maritime regulators will start investigating the shortage of containers that are impacting the US exports and supplies. They start looking into the matter by seeing if the shipping lines are causing the impairment in the ability of American farmers who intend to trade in the foreign markets by holding the empty containers back from exporting the goods. A statement was released by the Federal Maritime Commission that would look into the actions taken by ocean carriers at the ports of Los Angeles. The important export ports like Long Beach and New York have reached saturation and have buffeted the outbound and inbound supply chains.
There have been reports which highlight the issues faced by US exporters of cotton, soybeans, lumber, and hay, stating that they are unable to find any boxes for export in the middle of the country while the shipping companies are busy in unpacking the boxes importing from Asia and sending them back without loading them with the American exports, instead. There have been high demands of retailers to export the goods which have been depleted during the pandemic, and ocean carriers can hike up to eight times from the past days.
The officials are showing concern and are worried if such practices from ocean carriers and their marine terminals have high chances to amplify and this would result in worsening the conditions where the ports might reach the bottleneck. This will negatively impact the ability to handle trade growth in the U.S.
The impressions of such conditions have marked their way since mid-summer when the lockdown ended and imports started catching the pace. The shortage of the container has also been a result of an imbalance in the value of the goods moving across the oceans to different parts of the world. China imports usually include electronics, toys, apparel, while the exports from the U.S. are heavily drawn towards bulky agricultural goods, and food beverages which obviously have a lower market value and marks a huge difference in the market value.
The FMC is continuously trying to sort the issues in the interest of the US economy by enforcing some valuable Shipping Acts. The Washington-based trading company insisted on looking into the matter with utmost concern since this is massively affecting the economy, farmers, and agricultural market which are only getting worse with each passing day. The World’s largest container company A.P. Moeller-Maersk is also showing full cooperation with FMC to resolving the rising problem.
