Buttigieg and Vilsack send strong message to the world’s leading ocean carriers, restore service to U.S. Western ports
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack released a letter urging the world’s leading ocean carriers to help mitigate disruptions to agricultural shippers of U.S. exports. Carriers were also urged to relieve supply chain disruptions created by the COVID-19 pandemic by restoring reciprocal treatment of imports and exports and improving service. The letter also ensured further investigation and action if these issues aren’t resolved quickly.
“This letter is a clear affirmation of what our growers have experienced for over 14 months – severe uncertainty, congestion, unjustified shipping penalties and unfair prioritization of foreign imports,” said Tracey Chow, Federal Government Affairs Specialist at Western Growers Association. “We support strong, additional actions from. Our federal and state officials that will ease congestion and restore the trade balance for our growers as soon as possible.”
Several points of contention were called out. The ports of Oakland and Portland were denied service by many carriers, causing unprecedented supply chain congestion in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The denial of service also created extra shipping costs from Northern California to Southern California. Further, fewer containers were made available U.S. agricultural commodities, unfair fees were charged and repeatedly changing return dates.
Returning service to Oakland and Portland would ease congestion in Southern California and reduce the number of long-haul truckers required by the disruption in service in Oakland and Portland.
United Fresh Produce Association released the following statement: “We support continued efforts by the Biden Administration to address the challenges impacting our West Coast ports that are vital to the fresh produce supply chain. As Secretary Buttigieg and Vilsack say clearly in their letter, ‘The poor service and refusal to serve customers when the empty containers are clearly available is unacceptable.’ For both those engaged in imports or exports, the current situation is untenable. That is why United Fresh has also lent its support to the Ocean Shipping Reform Act which recently passed the House with overwhelming bipartisan support.”
The letter from Buttigieg and Vilsack closes with the statement that the historic disruption requires both government and industry pulling together to maximize current infrastructure and minimize further disruptions.
