The economic consequences of the calamity in Baltimore are likely to be substantial.
Baltimore is one of the largest ports on the eastern seaboard of the United States. It is the fifth largest port on the East Coast by total tons of cargo handled, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, and the seventeenth largest overall in the United States.
Those numbers understate its importance to the U.S. economy. The port is the twelfth largest container port in the U.S., according to Ryan Peterson, the CEO of Flexport. It was ninth in terms of the tonnage and value of foreign cargo, according to the governor of Maryland.