Port of Baltimore’s Daniels says Baltimore is back

The Port of Baltimore is in recovery mode.

The Port is embarking on new projects including the CSX Howard Street Rail Tunnel project beginning double-stacked rail service to and from the Port to Midwest destinations, a new grain transloading terminal and a new container terminal in collaboration with MSC, according to Jonathan Daniels, Executive Director, Maryland Port Authority.

The Port experienced a shutdown after a container ship collision caused the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in 2024, but Daniels and Mark Schmidt, CEO Ports America Chesapeake, spoke to AJOT in a video interview about modernization projects at the Port of Baltimore that are speeding recovery.

Daniels told AJOT: “While we are not fully back as of yet … I think we have faced … challenges and with strong partners … like Ports America Chesapeake we are in a very strong recovery … mode. Last year, 2025, in many respects exceeded our expectations as we rode the initial early year fever that everybody was under to try and avoid some of the tariffs by moving a significant amount of cargo through the U.S. ports as quickly as was possible to not be impacted by the tariffs. This allowed us the opportunity in 2025 to see a record movement in the amount of TEUs (twenty-foot container units) … moving through our Seagirt Marine Terminal with our partners from Ports America Chesapeake, and the great work that Mark Schmidt and his team do.”

Daniels said that in 2025: “We had our second busiest year ever through the Port, just a little bit below 2023, which is our bellwether year here. We moved about 50 million tons of cargo through our containers, roll on, roll off and our vehicle movements, which continued to stay very strong … So, we saw a very strong rebound in 2025. We are not where we would be if it had not been for the (Francis Scott Key) Bridge collapse. We would certainly see numbers that were above where we were in 2025. But we have taken a very strong position and very active position, and we are being as aggressive as we … rebound and recover.”

Daniels said that the Port “is as an agency that strives on economic development and being an economic engine for the Baltimore region as well as for the State of Maryland. We were pleased with the recovery, but we are not going to rest on our laurels … And with the new infrastructure that is going to be coming online within the next week or so with the Howard Street (Rail) Tunnel, we think that the future for the Port of Baltimore … is only getting brighter.”