Tariff uncertainty throttles trade, but not expansion, at Georgia’s ports
JEKYLL ISLAND ― Maritime trade is crawling at Georgia’s ports, but the state authority that operates the nation’s third-busiest cargo terminals isn’t throttling back its expansion efforts.
Container traffic is flat while wheeled and tracked cargo, such as autos, has experienced a double-digit decline for the fiscal year through February, Ports Authority CEO Griff Lynch told his board of directors Tuesday. He projects continued challenges through June, the end of the fiscal year, given geopolitical uncertainties.
Those include the Iran war, as well as evolving tariff policies. In February, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down many of the tariffs President Donald Trump implemented last year, resulting in the Trump administration imposing new levies.
Rather than dial back the Ports Authority’s ongoing $4.5 billion infrastructure improvement plan because of business conditions, the board voted to add another asset, authorizing the $55 million purchase of a 60-acre site to expand the Savannah container terminal.
“These are challenging times and challenging numbers,” Lynch told the board during a meeting at the Jekyll Island Club. “But our market share is doing OK, and we expect improvement in (fiscal year) 2027.”
The crawl and near-term forecast reflects projections by the National Retail Federation that imports would be slow after the 2025 Christmas holiday season as retailers seek “more stability and certainty” in tariff and trade policy, according to Jonathan Gold, the group’s vice president for supply chain and customs policy.
The ports authority’s long-range optimism is driven by Georgia’s ports outperforming their rivals in the Southeast. Compared with pre-COVID pandemic levels, volume gains at the Savannah container port are outpacing Norfolk, Virginia, by 6% and the Port of Charleston, South Carolina, by 10%.
Savannah is the nation’s third-busiest cargo container port, and its sister facility in Brunswick is the U.S.’s leader for autos and wheeled and tracked vehicles. Port facilities support 651,000 jobs and contribute $174 billion in sales activity annually in the state, a 2025 University of Georgia study showed.
Tuesday’s land purchase decision will add 60 acres to the neighboring 100-acre Garden City Terminal West container storage yard. The yard opened in 2024 and is increasingly drawing interest from major retailers looking to bolster their U.S. supply chain.
The Ports Authority has no immediate plans for the property, but the move is “smart growth,” said Alec Poitevint, the board chairperson, because the site is contiguous to the terminal.
Expanding the terminal’s footprint has been a priority since the COVID pandemic exposed space constraints. The flood of cargo that followed the reopening of the world’s economies overwhelmed the Savannah facilities, forcing cargo ships to anchor offshore for a week or more before coming upriver to offload their containers because there was no room to put them.
At the time, the Ports Authority leased several off-terminal properties to use as storage yards to ease the logjam. Since then, the authority has launched projects to prevent such backlogs in the future. Those include converting Ocean Terminal, along the Savannah River, from a port that handled a variety of cargo types to just containers, creating the Garden City Terminal West storage yard and developing the Gainesville Inland Port in Hall County, connected to Savannah via rail.
Inland ports allow containers to move from ship to train and off terminal in 20 hours, easing congestion. The Gainesville facility is nearing completion, with a May 4 opening date, and has the capacity to handle 200,000 containers a year.
Another inland port, near Chatsworth along I-75, known as the Appalachian Regional Port, opened in 2018 and connects Savannah to the Midwest and other parts of America’s heartland.
The pandemic “told us that when we think we’re well-positioned for the future, something can happen that goes beyond what we planned for,” Poitevint said. “If something comes on the market that is contiguous to our property we should look at if. If you can control it or own it, it’s responsible growth.”
About the Author
Adam Van Brimmer is a journalist who covers politics and Coastal Georgia news for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
