Port of Savannah tracks tariff impacts following second busiest year on record

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - Georgia Ports Authority President and CEO Griff Lynch says there’s rough water ahead this year after the Port of Savannah’s second busiest year on record.

It could be a slow start for these ships going to sea.

“The 2.6 percent growth we encountered this past year, a lot of that came the first seven, eight months, and the last few months we’ve been kind of fighting it. We’re happy we came above board, which is better than most, but this next year will be a challenge,” said Lynch.

One of Georgia’s largest economic drivers is growing, but cautiously optimistic about 2026.

The Port of Savannah handled 5.7-million twenty-foot equivalent container units in 2025, the second most ever in its history.

But all eyes are on tariff impacts from across the world, which are impacting operations in southeast Georgia.

“We were hoping to have more of the tariffs completed by this point but Vietnam is one of our fastest growing markets. They are at 15% and that’s worked out so that’s a great indicator. However, India is a market that we’re expecting to see great growth but they’re still at 50% so we really need to see that come together,” said Lynch.

Lynch says their auto exports dropped considerably when it comes to China.

Centering focus back to Savannah, Georgia, there are plans to improve traffic congestion impacting people’s lives.

Georgia DOT is scheduled to open new traffic patterns to improve traffic on State Route 25 and Brampton Road, an intersection often congested by port traffic.

“The thing that’s really important to us always is doing the best we can to mitigate the impacts we have on the surrounding community,” said Lynch.

Back to the port-side side of things locally as well, they lost 20,000 containers, the ports are used to handling every single year, counting on their business, after International Paper Company’s closure as well.

Regardless, there’s still a positive outlook overall. It just may take a few months before they see the higher number of containers, trucks, and boats rolling in and out of their ports.

“We’re very hopeful that this summer, not only with the trade deals coming together, some of our economists that we talk with a work with and our customers are hopeful that we’ll see some better volumes in the summer going into 2027.”