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NPPC urges Congress to address port bottlenecks
The National Pork Producers Council is urging Congress to address disruptions and shipping delays at US international ports.
Jen Sorenson, president of NPPC testified before a House Transportation Subcommittee on Tuesday. “Production has returned to some sense of normalcy,” she says. “Shipping delays at our international ports are causing serious issues for US pork producers and other agricultural exporters.”
She says if the delays aren’t addressed soon, they could cause significant backups, which would be very costly to the US pork industry. “These shipping delays to the Asia-Pacific region are increasing costs to US pork and positioning the United States as an unreliable trading partner,” she says. “If left unaddressed, this might also impact future trading agreements with Southeast Asia trading partners.”
Sorenson says there are currently more than 1,000 containers of pork sitting at West Coast ports waiting to be exported.
All US ports are experiencing shipping delays, but the West Coast has been the most impacted since it sends products to Asian-Pacific destinations. To help alleviate the port bottlenecks, NPPC is urging the approval of expanded operating hours for US ports, and expedited Federal Maritime Commission enforcement preventing unreasonable financial penalties for exporters.
