Port Director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Beth Rooney says it’s no exaggeration — America’s port system is critical.

"Literally everything — 95% of consumer goods — come into the United States in ocean containers," Rooney said, as she gave Spectrum News a tour of operations at the Howland Hook Marine Terminal.

That statistic is exactly why so much attention is now being paid to what tariffs could do to the amount of cargo the U.S. imports.

But to understand the potential impact that tariffs could have on U.S. cargo, it’s important to understand how cargo is measured. It's a system that, coincidentally, was developed in the Port of New York and New Jersey in 1956 by a man named Malcom McLean.

The idea behind creating a standard cargo container was simple, Rooney say

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