‘Remarkable!’ CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Stunned Major Port Has ‘No Ships’ Amid Trump Tariffs
CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins was stunned to learn that there are “no ships at berth” in the Port of Seattle after several weeks of President Donald Trump’s tariff regimen.
Trump scored a long-awaited victory when he announced a trade deal with the United Kingdom Thursday, but his trade war with other nations — especially China — are still predicted to have dramatic negative impacts on the U.S. economy.
“What looks likely — given the scope and scale of the tariffs — is that we will see certainly the risks to higher inflation, higher unemployment have increased,” Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said on Wednesday.
On Wednesday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, Collins interviewed Commissioner of the Port of Seattle Ryan Calkins about the impact of the tariffs, and called his revelations “quite concerning”:
KAITLAN COLLINS: The tariffs, so far, I wonder, for you directly, what is the impact that you’re seeing? How could you sum up how much your job has changed, because of the policies coming out of the White House tonight?
RYAN CALKINS: Thanks for having me, Kaitlan.
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. And that happens every once in a while in normal times, but it is pretty rare.
And so to see it tonight is, I think, a stark reminder that the impacts of the tariffs have real implications. It means that we don’t have longshore workers on the dock, right now, unloading merchandise. We don’t have trains taking that merchandise to inland ports, and all the way across the country, to places like Des Moines, Iowa, and Chicago, Illinois. And that’s hundreds of jobs right here, in our region, and across the country.
COLLINS: You have none at your port right now?
CALKINS: We currently do not have any container ships at port right now. That’s correct.
COLLINS: And that’s because just nothing is being shipped over? I mean, that’s pretty remarkable.
CALKINS: Well, it is. It’s pretty unusual.
We do anticipate, I was looking at our schedule, we anticipate about 25 vessel calls between here and the Port of Tacoma, over the next seven days. And keep in mind, we’re not just importing from Asia or just China. We do have activity from all over the world, largely the Pacific Rim. But we are seeing a significant drop in container volume through our gateway.
COLLINS: You said this is rare. I mean, can you think of the last time that this happened, that you didn’t have any of them coming into your — at your port?
CALKINS: Probably the height of the pandemic was the last time I saw it. Before we really started to see the surge in cargo towards the end of the pandemic.
COLLINS: OK. If you’re someone who’s listening, I mean, that’s quite concerning, given no one can forget the supply chain disruptions, and what happened during COVID, when things just were not on the shelves because of a pandemic that was engulfing the entire globe.
Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.
