I found a really informative article about how Ocean Carriers have begun charging exorbitant fees for holding shipping containers, and how those fees are directly causing inflation
https://www.propublica.org/article/ocean-freight-shipping-costs-inflation
The Hidden Fees Making Your Bananas, and Everything Else, Cost More
“…The hauler that wanted $12,000 per container to move the bananas told the One Banana logistics specialist that it needed the money to cover a slew of fees the ocean carriers were tacking onto freight bills. Hapag-Lloyd, the German shipping giant that owned the containers the bananas were sitting in, had become particularly notorious in the freight industry, leading to multiple complaints to the Federal Maritime Commission.
In normal times, the fees, known as detention and demurrage, make a lot of sense. Importers who don’t pick up their stuff on time get charged demurrage for storage at the marine terminals. Truckers who don’t return an empty container on time pay late fees, or detention. The purpose of the penalties is to incentivize the various players in the supply chain to keep goods flowing…
But as supply chains snarled last year, the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles ran out of room and became clogged with shipping containers that importers, often big-box retailers and brands, weren’t able to retrieve. Surrounding truckyards and streets were flooded with empty containers, temporarily dumped there by trucking companies that couldn’t get appointments to return them to the ports.
Hapag had made it “extremely difficult” to return empty containers, the trucking company said, and it was often left holding them for a month, all while Hapag continued to charge the firm $400 a day for each container that wasn’t returned on time. One trucking company that the importer contacted said it almost had to shut down temporarily because all the chassis — the steel frames with wheels that attach to trucks — that it needed to pull new loads from the ports were sitting under 70 empty containers that Hapag refused to take back.
Essentially, One Banana and several trucking companies said Hapag had created the situation it was now profiting from.
“It’s like renting a car at the airport, and when you try to return it, they’re saying, ‘No, you have to hang on to it for us, and we’re gonna continue to charge you,’” said Fred Johring, the CEO of one of the trucking firms, Golden State Logistics…”