SUPPLY-CHAIN SECURITYBaltimore Bridge Collapse Tests U.S. Supply Chains

By Zongyuan Zoe Liu

The accident that closed the Port of Baltimore initially raised concerns that supply chains would take another hit just as global shipping adjusted to disruptions from Houthi attacks on vessels in the Red Sea. But supply chains have been resilient thus far, and U.S. efforts to fortify them are accelerating. 

Have there been global economic repercussions from the collapse? 
The bridge’s collapse and the port’s temporary closure have caused a logistics challenge but not a major supply-chain crisis; so far, the global economy has been relatively unaffected. The port, which was ranked three hundredth on the World Bank’s 2022 Container Port Performance Index, is not a major artery of global trade. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has said that the port could reopen for normal operations by the end of May. 

Before that happens, freight diversion to other U.S. ports, such as the Port of New York and New Jersey and the Port of Virginia, are adding demand for services, trucks, and truck drivers to move goods around, which will likely exacerbate congestion in ports and highways on the United States’ East Coast and could raise labor costs. Meanwhile, the bridge collapse is diverting an estimated five thousand trucks per day, carrying $28 billion in goods, leading to delays and raising fuel costs for shippers and their clients.

How important is the Port of Baltimore to the U.S. and local economies?Ranked as the fifteenth-largest container port in the United States, the Port of Baltimore is much smaller than the largest East Coast ports, including the Port of New York and New Jersey and the Port of Virginia. Still, it ranked [PDF] as the third-largest port on the East Coast and ninth-largest U.S. port in terms of international cargo tonnage in 2023.