Newark — Container throughput at the Port of New York and New Jersey declined through the first five months of 2026, breaking a growth streak that had run close to two years at the East Coast’s largest cargo gateway.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s monthly cargo reporting shows 3,657,737 loaded and empty twenty-foot equivalent units moved across all marine terminals between January and May, down 1.9% from the 3,729,611 TEUs handled over the same period in 2025.

The composition of the decline is more informative than the headline number. Loaded import TEUs fell 2.4% year to date, to 1,840,605, while loaded export TEUs rose 0.8%, to 597,353. Empty export containers dropped 2.6%, to 1,211,364 — an indication that fewer boxes are being repositioned overseas for reloading, which is consistent with importers slowing new orders rather than exporters losing business.

Read together, that pattern describes inbound demand absorbing a shock while outbound freight holds closer to level. It matches the broader national picture, with shippers spending 2026 adjusting order timing around shifting tariff schedules and renegotiated trade terms rather than responding to changes in underlying consumer demand. Ports along the East and Gulf coasts have reported similar cycles of front-loading followed by pullback, though the size of the swings in New Jersey stands out given how much regional industrial activity depends on the port.

The month-to-month volatility this year has been considerable. February volume reached 589,795 TEUs, a 15.7% decrease from 699,240 TEUs in February 2025, after a blizzard that dropped nearly two feet of snow across the metropolitan area closed port facilities for three days — something that had not happened in more than a decade. March then came in near record highs at 837,993 TEUs, up 6.9% from 783,732 a year earlier, as delayed vessels arrived. April volume was 688,163 TEUs, down 8.4% from 751,194 in April 2025. First-quarter volume totaled 2.17 million TEUs, a 1.2% decline from the same period in 2025.

The port was the nation’s busiest cargo gateway in March.

The pullback follows a strong prior year. The port handled 8.9 million TEUs in 2025, up 2.3% and its third-busiest year on record, trailing only 2021 and 2022. Volumes averaged nearly 750,000 TEUs per month, with the first half performing at a similar pace to the second despite tariff uncertainty beginning in April of last year. Export volume rose 6.5% to 1.4 million TEUs in 2025 while imports reached 4.5 million TEUs, up 1.7%. Rail volume increased 12.4% to 718,942 containers.

One category has been under pressure longer. Automobile volume fell about 12% year over year to 365,000 units, a decline Beth Rooney, director of the Port Department at the Port Authority, attributed to tariff-related effects. Full-year 2025 auto volume was down 11%.

The regional exposure is unusually concentrated. Rooney has described New York and New Jersey as predominantly a truck port, with 85% of volume staying within roughly 250 miles of port facilities, against about 8% of TEUs moving by rail. That means container softness translates almost directly into reduced drayage volume, warehouse throughput and distribution activity across northern New Jersey and the outer boroughs, rather than dispersing across a national rail network.

The second half of the year determines whether this settles into lower-growth normal or reverts toward the prior trajectory. The June and July Port Authority figures will indicate whether the first-five-month swings were a timing reaction to tariff schedules or the beginning of a longer repositioning of trade flows. Warehouse landlords should also watch whether rail-lift stability holds even if ocean volumes soften further, since that divergence has become the clearest early indicator of where regional logistics real estate demand is heading.

For warehouse operators and trucking firms working on 2027 capacity planning, the loaded-import figure is the number to track month over month. It moves first and it moves cleanest.

JBizNews Desk | Newark

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