Jacksonville is Florida's largest container port. The Blount Island Marine Terminal, pictured in October 2021, is undergoing more than $70 million in investment to help the port process as many as 2.3 million containers on an annual basis. | Photo by Will Brown
Published on April 28, 2025 at 4:27 pm
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The effect of fluctuating tariff policies remains to be seen at Florida’s busiest container port, JAXPORT officials say.
JAXPORT Chief Commercial Officer Robert Peek says he has spoken with more than 100 companies since President Donald Trump announced a 10% across-the-board tariff on imports on April 2. The 10% tariff alone is not enough to affect imports into Jacksonville, but it has caused economic uncertainty.
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Peek told the Jacksonville Port Authority board Monday that no shippers who call on JAXPORT have canceled since the 10% tariffs were implemented April 5.
Trump’s quest to stimulate American manufacturing through hiking tariffs on Chinese imports may have reverberations here.
“China accounts between 10 and 15% of our total container volume” — comparecd with 30% of traffic at some other ports, Peek told the board.
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In terms of overall cargo — containers, military materials, automotive and break bulk — China makes up 5% or 6%, Peek said.
During the first five months of the 2024-25 fiscal year that began Oct. 1, JAXPORT imported 21,789 20-foot cargo containers from China. That pace is ahead of the 46,387 containers that were imported in 2024, yet behind the 2023 pace.
The port’s largest source of imports has historically been Puerto Rico. Its business relationship with the U.S. territory was one of the things that sustained port operations during the COVID-19 pandemic and other periods of economic upheaval.
However, among counties that are not U.S. territories, China was the largest exporter to Jacksonville in both the 2023 and 2024 fiscal years. Vietnam, Thailand, Brazil and Costa Rica also were large exporters to JAXPORT.
The Trump administration has threatened, but delayed until July, a 46% reciprocal tariff on all products from Vietnam and a 37% reciprocal tariff on all products from Thailand.
Meanwhile, the Associated Press has reported that Brazilian leaders have sought to negotiate with the Trump administration. Reuters reports that Costa Rican political leaders have indicated a similar willingness to negotiate a trade deal with the United States.
In the last three years, JAXPORT has added a shipping lane to Europe, service routes on both the east and west coasts of South America and added trade lanes to Pakistan and India.
For the entire 2023 fiscal year, JAXPORT imported 5,881 20-foot-containers from India. Through the first five months of this year, the local port has imported 4,352 containers from India.
JAXPORT CEO Eric Green says the port’s diversity — from containers, auto imports, Puerto Rican traffic, cruises and shipping lanes on multiple continents — has long shielded Jacksonville from the full brunt of economic shifts. He says it’s too early to tell which trade lane will be affected by tariff policies.
“We continue to tout our efficiency in the market,” Green told Jacksonville Today. “As these tariffs begin to show themselves, (and the administration) divulges what exactly they’re going to look like, being efficient is going to make a big difference. To be able to get those vessels in and out and turn them on time, I think that’s what our partners are looking for. Our meetings, our travel is really about solidifying our partnerships and relationships with shipping lines.”
JAXPORT Chief Financial Officer Joey Greive told the board the port is financially positioned to weather the uncertainty because it has included Consumer Price Index escalators into its contracts with tenants. That means that when prices for goods are higher, as they are now, tenants pay the port a higher rent.
Through the first six months of the current fiscal year, JAXPORT reported a 29% increase in automotives processed over 2024 to 48,565 vehicles. During that same timeframe, the total number of 20-foot cargo containers, or TEUs, declined 1% from 110,576 at this time in 2024 to 109,231 this year.
The 132 vessels that called on JAXPORT in March, the month that preceded the announcement of across-the-board tariffs, was the same as last year. Despite the uncertainty of potential tariffs, 790,830 tons of cargo imported in March represented a slight increase from 2024.
JAXPORT handles 1.4 million TEUs of cargo annually. The maritime industry has long served as a way for Jaxsons, more than 1,800 of whom are members of the International Longshoremen’s Association, to earn wages that exceed the area median income.
