Thirty-six ports from Maine to Texas could shut down operations if thousands of dockworkers go on strike Tuesday.
“It has me very concerned if this does last for, say, multiple weeks — that would be a really significant impact on the economy right when we’re looking a little fragile,” said Josh Stillwagon, Associate Professor and Chair of Economics at Babson College.
The International Longshoremen’s Association says they’ll walk off the job at midnight if they can’t reach a deal on their contracts with the United States Maritime Alliance.
“If we don’t have ports on the Eastern seaboard here, there’s going to be fewer goods that we’re able to get in, I mean there’s going to be a lot of goods just sort of sitting at the ports, and it will in some ways look like what happened when there was a lot of port congestion right after COVID,” said Stillwagon.
He says a strike of this magnitude would be a huge hit to the economy, forcing prices to go up for common imports like fruits, chocolate, coffee, and alcohol, among so many other products shipped to the U.S.