West Coast truck drivers are saying their workloads have plummeted due to Trump’s tariff policies, with the significant decreases in shipping containers arriving at US ports. They warn that significant shortages of food and consumer goods are on the horizon, as truck drivers are responsible for 90 percent of groceries on shelves.
The impact of the measures against Chinese imports, which account for 20 percent of trucking demand, is a plunge in supply, an upsurge in prices and mass layoffs in American transportation and logistics industries.
Trade war is deeply connected to Trump’s ongoing coup attempt, in which he is pouring the National Guard and Marines into Los Angeles and other major American cities. The aim is to turn the country, and the whole of North America, into an armed camp and staging grounds for attacks against China and other countries which US capitalism considers its rivals.
The temporary truce on the heaviest tariffs against China is only a tactical pause. The 90-day moratorium on the “reciprocal tariffs” against a wide range of other countries is in order to strong-arm countries to “get in line” behind Washington against China.
In April, the executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, Gene Seroka, warned that by mid-May, arrivals to the port “will drop by 35 percent as essentially all shipments out of China for major retailers and manufacturers has ceased.” This trajectory was confirmed in a PBS interview with Geoff Bennet on May 14. Seroka noted that, “at the Port of Los Angeles, for the month of May, we were expecting 80 ships to arrive with cargo from Asia, and we had 17 cancelled.”
In the Port of Long Beach, container bookings from China dropped 60 percent in April alone. This is significant, as “The Port of Long Beach after the first quarter of 2025 moved more container cargo than any other port in the country,” according to the port’s CEO Mario Cordero. He also noted that “the port is expecting an estimated 30 percent drop in cargo volume in the second quarter.”
The Trump administration’s tariff war against China is having a particularly devastating effect on the working class and small businesses. The financial impact is radiating out from the ports to the truckers, warehouse workers and myriad other jobs surrounding the ports.
The World Socialist Web Site spoke with truck drivers waiting for work near the Long Beach port about the situation in the trucking industry as well as the brutal ICE raids and the deployment of the National Guard on peaceful protesters in Los Angeles. The WSWS has described this as a coup attempt by the Trump administration to overthrow the Constitution and establish dictatorial rule.
Antonio, a Mexican-American independent trucker, said, “There has been an extreme slowdown in work. As you can see, I’m just sitting here with no load. Trump’s tariffs have been really bad for my work the past couple weeks, and not sure when it will get better.”
When asked about the ICE raids and Trump’s attacks on immigrants, he said, “I don’t agree with Trump on this. His policies are really bad. So many immigrants work here, have families, and are contributing. It’s not fair, I have family who are immigrants. It affects all of us.”
Agreeing with the call for unified action among the international working class, he noted, “We need something like a general strike. Many truck drivers work across borders or have ties, like the US and Mexico. We are an international community.”
Jos, another independent truck driver for 37 years, told the WSWS, “Everything is getting worse, it’s just crazy the way Trump is doing this, deporting people. It’s not good, there’s no way he can deport all the Spanish people.” As for the conditions for truckers he added, “It’s getting so bad I cannot even pay insurance, it’s so expensive. All this has to stop ... yes I’m for a general strike.”
Truckers are also experiencing shift cuts and thousands of layoffs. At Hight Logistics in Long Beach, the struggle is compounded by the company’s shift to a “clean fleet” of about 20 electric big rigs, each costing about $500,000 according to NewsNation.
The dire situation has truck drivers taking to social media, warning that their lack of work will result in a ripple effect across all American industries, ultimately affecting American consumers.
Drivers say they are waiting for hours in empty yards to pick up shipping containers, while more truckers are left waiting at truck stops due to the lack of pick-up opportunities. One TikTok user, @trucking.life2899 said, “I have no f***** clue what is gonna happen, because day by day it’s getting worse and worse. … I haven’t seen the trucking industry like this in the past ten years. This is the worst year for the trucking industry, worst year!”
Another truck driver shared how his daily earnings plunged from about $1,000 to about $300 per day while still working his full 15-hour shift. Independent owner-operator truck drivers face high costs, including the cost of trucks that can range from $160,000 for newer vehicles. Many are caught up in predatory lease-purchase agreements. Declining work means that more and more are facing complete financial ruin as they are unable to afford debt payments and insurance.
In another video, @greatastic23 explained through tears that the lack of work and expenses to maintain his truck payments and insurance have put him under. “I’m an owner operator, I own my own truck, or well, I should say I used to own my own truck. ... Today is the worst day of my life. Today’s the day I turned my truck in. Between the shop, the insurance, and everything else that goes with it, the payments. I went broke. I turned my truck in. I love my truck. I tried my best ... I failed.”
About three of every four owner-operators voted for Trump in the 2024 election, according to polls conducted by the trucking website OverdriveOnline. But while Trump was able to exploit their economic grievances with right-wing populist rhetoric under conditions where the Democratic Party long ago abandoned any pretense of reform, drivers did not vote for trade war and dictatorship. Less than six months after assuming office, the reality of the Trump administration as a would-be dictatorship ruling on behalf of the financial oligarchy has become undeniable.
Truckers, 18 percent of whom are foreign-born, have a history of militant struggles. In 2021, they launched a nationwide boycott of the state of Colorado against the vindictive 110-year sentence handed down to Rogel Aguilera-Mederos, a 23-year-old Cuban immigrant and trucker involved in a fatal accident after his brakes failed. The protests forced the governor to reduce his sentence to 10 years.
In 2022, independent truckers blockaded California ports to protest the implementation of a new state law that would force them to either sell their rigs and join trucking companies or register themselves as companies, a prohibitive expense. A very large proportion of port truckers in California are immigrants.
The protests took place as the International Longshore and Warehouse Union was keeping dockworkers on the job without a contract; wildcat actions the following year led to the Biden White House intervening to rapidly impose a deal.
In response to the sell-out contract pushed through last month on the East Coast docks, the WSWS noted:
The working class will be thrust into struggle against his policies, which include ripping up core democratic rights and massive austerity and war on a scale not seen before in American history. Those workers who sought to register their anger at the status quo by voting for Trump will soon be afflicted with buyers’ remorse.
Claims by union bureaucrats that tariffs are good for “American” workers are rapidly being exposed. Not only have these “America First” policies led to mass layoffs and price increases, but attacks on immigrant workers, a key section of the US working class, are the spearhead of Trump’s ongoing attempt to establish a dictatorship.
Mass demonstrations are growing rapidly against the Trump administration. But the decisive question will be the intervention of the working class. Truckers, dockworkers and other key logistics workers must mobilize as part of a general strike to defeat Trump’s coup.