Two baselines put Los Angeles June imports 68,490 to 93,874 TEUs above trend, but do not identify why

15 July 2026

The Port of Los Angeles handled 1,002,734 TEUs in June, including 530,557.50 loaded-import TEUs. It was the port's busiest June and the third month in its history above 1 million total TEUs. [Port release](https://portoflosangeles.org/references/2026-news-releases/news_071526_june_cargo) [Official table](https://portoflosangeles.org/business/statistics/container-statistics)

A TEUTEUA twenty-foot equivalent unit is container capacity equal to one standard 20-foot container, not a measure of the cargo's value, weight or sales. [Port definition](https://portoflosangeles.org/business/statistics/container-statistics) is best understood as a measuring cup, not a receipt. It records standardized container capacity, but it does not reveal the merchandise's price, weight, tarifftariffA tariff is a tax charged when an imported product enters a country. exposure, planned arrival date or eventual buyer. A record for container traffic is therefore not automatically a record for consumer demand or economic output. [Port definition](https://portoflosangeles.org/business/statistics/container-statistics)

Cumulant Research compared the actual loaded-import count with two reproducible baselines. The result was 93,874 TEUs above the primary month-by-month seasonal modelseasonal modelA seasonal model gives each calendar month its own typical effect so a usually busy month is not compared directly with a usually quiet one. and 68,490 above a smaller model fitted only to historical Junes.

The defensible finding is a range for the baseline gap, not a count of frontloaded boxes.

The primary model uses 96 monthly observations from 2015-2019 and 2022-2024. It fits a linear calendar-year trend plus a separate effect for each month, allowing June to have a different typical level from February or October. The underlying observations come from the Port's historical monthly tables. [Port data](https://portoflosangeles.org/business/statistics/container-statistics)

The model is fitted with ordinary least squaresordinary least squaresOrdinary least squares fits a model by choosing values that minimize the sum of the squared gaps between observed and fitted results. [NIST](https://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/pmd/section4/pmd431.htm), which chooses the trend and monthly effects that minimize the squared gaps between the historical observations and the fitted values. [NIST](https://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/pmd/section4/pmd431.htm)

For June 2026, that model produces a point estimatepoint estimateA point estimate is the model's single best numerical estimate before uncertainty around that estimate is considered. [NIST](https://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/pmd/section1/pmd132.htm) of 436,683 TEUs and an approximate 95% prediction interval95% prediction intervalA 95% prediction interval is designed to cover a new observation about 95% of the time if the model and its statistical assumptions are appropriate. [NIST](https://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/pmd/section1/pmd132.htm) from 328,920 to 544,446. The actual 530,558 falls near the upper end but remains inside the interval.

The June-only check fits a straight trend through the eight June observations in the same training years. It produces a higher point estimate of 462,067 but a narrower interval from 422,661 to 501,474. The actual result is above that range.

The two results are not logically contradictory. One model uses all months to estimate the amount of month-to-month noise, while the other uses only eight observations. They answer slightly different questions and rely on different amounts of information. The small June-only model should therefore be treated as a sensitivity check, not as an automatic winner.

Prediction intervals are wider than confidence intervals for an average because they include the noise expected in one new observation as well as uncertainty in the fitted model. [NIST](https://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/pmd/section1/pmd132.htm)

Total port traffic increased by 110,394.25 TEUs from June 2025. Loaded imports contributed 60,107.75 TEUs, empty containers contributed 50,065.50 and loaded exports contributed 221.00. Those components equal 54.4%, 45.4% and 0.2% of the increase after rounding. [Port table](https://portoflosangeles.org/business/statistics/container-statistics)

Empty containers do not represent imported merchandise. Their large contribution means the 1-million-TEU headline cannot be used by itself to measure goods entering the US economy.

The Port said June's performance was driven by strong import demand and reported that retailers and manufacturers were advancing shipments while navigating trade policy, fuel costs and supply-chain uncertainty. It also said businesses were moving cargo when conditions appeared favorable instead of following traditional seasonal patterns. [Port release](https://portoflosangeles.org/references/2026-news-releases/news_071526_june_cargo)

That interpretation may be correct, but the published port table cannot establish it. The table separates loaded imports, loaded exports and empty containers, but it does not identify the product, origin country, importer, inventory destination, planned shipping date or tariff treatment of each container. [Port statistics](https://portoflosangeles.org/business/statistics/container-statistics)

Calling the entire 68,490-to-93,874-TEU gap frontloadingfrontloadingFrontloading means moving imports earlier than otherwise planned, often to arrive before an expected tariff or disruption. [Federal Reserve](https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/racing-against-tariffs-global-impacts-of-frontloading-20250801.html) would therefore confuse a residual with a cause. The residual is simply what remains after subtracting a model estimate from the observed count.

Descartes estimated 2,400,627 US containerized-import TEUs in June, down 1.2% from May. Within its ten largest gateways, Los Angeles increased by 70,495 TEUs while the group declined by 18,533. Subtracting Los Angeles leaves a combined decline of 89,028 TEUs at the other nine gateways. [Descartes](https://www.descartes.com/resources/knowledge-center/global-shipping-report-june-2026-container-imports-stabilize)

Descartes also reported that West Coast ports' share rose from 42.3% in May to 44.6% in June, while the East and Gulf Coast share fell from 42.0% to 39.6%. Those movements are consistent with a shift toward West Coast gateways. They do not prove substitution because the published aggregates do not show that an identical origin-product shipment moved from one gateway to another. [Descartes](https://www.descartes.com/resources/knowledge-center/global-shipping-report-june-2026-container-imports-stabilize)

The Descartes and Port figures should not be merged as if they came from one ledger. The Port publishes operational container counts. Descartes uses an initial compilation of Customs-processed bills of lading, says the records can later be modified, and calculates TEUs from declared container information. [Descartes methodology](https://www.descartes.com/resources/knowledge-center/global-shipping-report-june-2026-container-imports-stabilize)

The latest household-spending release available on 15 July showed that real PCEreal PCEReal personal consumption expenditures measure household spending after removing the effect of price changes. [BEA](https://www.bea.gov/news/2026/personal-income-and-outlays-may-2026) increased 0.3% in May. Current-dollar spending increased 0.7%, including a $61.8 billion increase in goods spending. These figures predate the June port result, and total real PCE includes services that do not arrive in containers. [BEA](https://www.bea.gov/news/2026/personal-income-and-outlays-may-2026)

The latest complete business-inventory report then available covered April. It placed the seasonally adjusted total business inventory-to-sales ratioinventory-to-sales ratioThe inventory-to-sales ratio compares goods held by businesses with their current sales pace, roughly indicating how many months of sales are sitting in stock. [Census Bureau](https://www.census.gov/mtis/current/index.html) at 1.31, compared with 1.38 in April 2025. That broad national ratio covers manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers, not just businesses receiving merchandise through Los Angeles. [Census Bureau](https://www.census.gov/mtis/current/index.html)

Stronger final sales would become a more convincing explanation if later inflation-adjusted goods spending remains firm while inventories for the imported categories stay stable or decline relative to sales. Rising inventories paired with weak sales would instead support stock-building or frontloading.

The Section 122Section 122Section 122 of the Trade Act permits temporary import restrictions intended to address serious international-payment problems. [White House](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/02/imposing-a-temporary-import-surcharge-to-address-fundamental-international-payments-problems/) proclamation was issued on 20 February 2026. It imposed a 10% ad valorem surcharge effective 24 February for 150 days, subject to product and country-related exceptions, and scheduled the measure to continue through 24 July unless changed or extended. [White House](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/02/imposing-a-temporary-import-surcharge-to-address-fundamental-international-payments-problems/)

Cargo entering in June could not avoid that already-active surcharge merely by arriving earlier within June. Any frontloading claim tied to Section 122 would need a different timing mechanism, such as an expected policy change that made one entry date cheaper than another.

On 2 June, USTR separately proposed Section 301Section 301Section 301 is a US trade-law process for investigating and responding to foreign practices judged to burden or restrict US commerce. [USTR](https://ustr.gov/about/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2026/june/ustr-makes-findings-and-proposes-action-60-section-301-investigations-relating-failures-take-action) duties following investigations involving 60 economies. The proposed rates were 10% for specified groups of economies and 12.5% for the others, with listed exceptions and a proposed textile mechanism. These were proposed actions undergoing public comment and hearings, not a single tariff that took effect for all June cargo. [USTR](https://ustr.gov/about/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2026/june/ustr-makes-findings-and-proposes-action-60-section-301-investigations-relating-failures-take-action)

The proposed duties could have encouraged some firms to ship early if they expected their products and origin countries to be covered later. That is an inference, not a finding. Testing it requires matching June cargo to the proposal's product and country coverage.

The most informative next step is to build a monthly panel by port, origin country and HS product code. Census says port-level six-digit Harmonized System data are available monthly, providing the categories needed for that comparison. [Census Bureau](https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/historical/hs.html)

• First, identify the origin-product categories that contributed most to the Los Angeles increase.
• Second, check whether those same categories declined at alternative gateways or across the country.
• Third, determine whether the goods faced a tariff change that earlier customs entry could plausibly avoid.
• Fourth, follow the same categories into later months and look for the shortfall that genuine frontloading should leave behind.
• Finally, compare relevant inventories with inflation-adjusted sales to see whether the goods accumulated in warehouses or were absorbed by buyers.

That sequence separates description from causation. A high June count describes what crossed the port. Only matched product, route, tariff, inventory and sales evidence can explain why it crossed when it did.

June loaded imports were 68,490 to 93,874 TEUs above two transparent point estimates. The primary model still treats 530,558 TEUs as plausible for one unusually high month, while the smaller June-only model does not.

The national port pattern makes gatewaygatewayA gateway is a port or port region through which imported cargo enters the country. shifts plausible, and the Port's account makes early shipping plausible. May spending data leave stronger sales plausible as well. None of those sources identifies the cause of the baselinebaselineA baseline is an estimate of the level that would normally be expected under a stated set of assumptions. gap.