Gene Seroka:
I am on an advisory committee with the U.S. trade representative and their staff. And I have been so impressed by their knowledge, work ethic and ability to listen.
But, realistically, what we saw here are a couple pieces. This whipsaw effect of information that’s coming out, the changes in policy that have happened so rapidly are difficult to keep up with even for the most seasoned veteran in this industry. Think small and medium-sized companies who don’t always have access trying to keep up with this and make the best decisions they can for their organizations.
Second, for every four containers that move through the Port of Los Angeles, we create a job that’s very important across a wide variety of segments in our economy. And in Southern California, it represents one in nine jobs. About a million people go to work every day based on what we do at the port.
And the last piece is, I think that it’s a real opportunity through this revised trade policy and different look at what we’re doing with partner countries to really step up our entrance on exports to other trading nations. Only 1 percent of manufactured goods in L.A. County get exported today.
And, as Americans, we only consume about one-third of all the harvested agricultural products in the nation. If we can open up more markets, some good will come out of this for the export community.
