What Does US Dockworkers’ Strike Mean for Belize’s Imports?

At the stroke of midnight, forty-five thousand dockworkers on the U.S. Eastern seaboard launched a massive strike, affecting over thirty ports from Maine to Texas. This industrial action has sparked concern among Belizean importers, who worry about the potential delays in their shipments.  The dockworkers are primarily protesting U.S. port operators over wages and the increasing use of automation. Delroy Fairweather, a customs broker, shared that while their current stock can last for a couple of weeks, an extended strike would force them to seek alternative sources for imports.

 

Delroy Fairweather, Custom Broker, Benny’s Enterprise

“When all these vessels get to a berthing area cannot be offloaded, you have literally hundreds of thousands of containers that need to be offloaded and that’s where the issue and the problem will come in. So you’re looking at kind of going back to this pandemic type situation. We trade with the entire world, per se. I don’t really have the statistics per se, what percentage of items would come from out of the U.S. as opposed to what comes from China, from Europe, from the Caribbean and so forth. But, you know, Belize, again, we are strategically – look where we’re strategically located and the proximity to our major – one of the major ports, which is Jamaica, which is a major transshipment hub, which brings a lot of containers out of China and Europe and those places, pretty much kind of can fill the void. Yes, we do import a lot of food stuff from the U.S. of course, on a weekly basis, but I am thinking that what we have here for now for at least another two to three weeks, we’re fine.”