SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — The executive overseeing Georgia's seaports said Tuesday that a record 830,000 automobiles moved through the Port of Brunswick south of Savannah in the 2024 fiscal year, bringing it neck-and-neck with the top U.S. auto port.
The combined number of auto and heavy machinery units handled by Brunswick and the Port of Savannah topped 876,000 in the fiscal year ending June 30, the Georgia Ports Authority reported. That's an increase of 21% over the same period a year ago.
Ports authority CEO Griff Lynch called it “a great year for us.”
The number of cars and light trucks being shipped through the Port of Brunswick has snowballed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. As U.S. auto sales in 2023 saw their biggest increase in a decade, Georgia was investing $262 million in upgrades and expansions in Brunswick to make room for growth. Lynch said those projects are almost complete and should be finished by fall.
Lynch predicted last October that automobile volumes in Brunswick by 2026 would surpass the Port of Baltimore, the No. 1 U.S. seaport for autos for more than a decade.
The new cargo numbers from Georgia indicate that Brunswick is already extremely close. Port officials in Maryland reported that Baltimore handled 847,000 auto imports and exports in the 2023 calendar year.
Baltimore's shipping channel shut down completely for weeks following the deadly collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26, then reopened in phases before the waterway was fully cleared in June.
It wasn't immediately known if the Port of Baltimore has automobile volume figures for the 12-month period ending June 30. The Associated Press left phone and email messages Tuesday for a spokesperson for the Maryland Port Administration.
When the bridge collapse forced auto shipments to be diverted from Baltimore, the Port of Brunswick received about 14,000 of those cars and trucks in April and May, Lynch said.
“Baltimore, I would think, is probably still No. 1, but we’re closing the gap,” Lynch said. "We don't want to be No. 1 because Baltimore had a bridge collapse."
He also noted Georgia's big gains in the past year largely resulted from other sources, such as automakers shifting their business to Brunswick from other neighboring ports such as Charleston, South Carolina, and Jacksonville, Florida.
Georgia’s push to become a Southern hub for electric vehicle production could send more autos across Brunswick’s docks, though perhaps not anytime soon. While Hyundai plans to open its first U.S. plant dedicated to EVs west of Savannah before the year ends, Lynch said he expects the factory to focus initially on vehicles for the U.S. market.
“Now I think it's fairly well understood that, at least in the early years, they would not be exporting a lot of cars,” Lynch said.
Also Tuesday, the ports authority reported that the Port of Savannah handled 5.25 million container units in the latest fiscal year, down 2.3% from fiscal 2023. Savannah is the fourth-busiest U.S. port for cargo shipped in containers. The giant metal boxes are used to transport goods from consumer electronics to frozen chickens.
Container volumes lagged in the last six months of 2023 as retailers with overstuffed inventories scaled back new orders, Lynch said, but started to rebound in recent months.
FILE - In this photo provided by the Georgia Port Authority, international longshoremen drive some of the first Kia Tellurides to be exported via the Port of Brunswick to the roll-on/roll-off vessel Sirius, Tuesday Feb., 26, 2019, at Colonel's Island Terminal in Brunswick, Ga. The Georgia Ports Authority says it moved a record number of automobiles across its docks in the 2024 fiscal year, bringing it neck-and-neck with the top U.S. auto port. (Stephen Morton/Georgia Port Authority via AP, File)
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Former Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González has fled into exile after being granted asylum in Spain, delivering a major blow to millions who placed their hopes in his upstart campaign to end two decades of single-party rule.
The surprise departure of the man considered by Venezuela’s opposition and several foreign governments to be the legitimate winner of July’s presidential race was announced late Saturday night by Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez.
She said the government decided to grant González safe passage out of the country, just days after ordering his arrest, to help restore “the country’s political peace and tranquility.”
Neither González nor opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has commented.
Meanwhile, Spain’s center-left government said the decision to abandon Venezuela was González's alone and he departed on a plane sent by the country's air force.
Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares told Spanish national broadcaster RTVE that his government will grant González political asylum as he has requested. Albares spoke while en route to China with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on a state visit.
“I have been able to speak to (González) and once he was aboard the airplane he expressed his gratitude toward the Spanish government and Spain,” Albares said. “Of course I told him we were pleased that he is well and on his way to Spain, and I reiterated the commitment of our government to the political rights of all Venezuelans.”
Sánchez said in a speech Friday, before González's departure was announced, that the opposition leader was “a hero whom Spain is not going to abandon.”
Albares said that González had spent an unspecified number of days at the Spanish Embassy in Caracas before his departure.
A Spanish official with knowledge of details on González’s departure said that his government did not discuss González’s exit with Maduro’s administration. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with ministry protocols.
González, a 75-year-old former diplomat, was a last minute stand in when Machado was banned from running. Previously unknown to most Venezuelans, his campaign nonetheless rapidly ignited the hopes of millions of Venezuelans desperate for change after a decade-long economic freefall.
While President Nicolás Maduro was declared the winner of the July vote, most Western governments have yet to recognize his victory and are instead demanding that authorities publish a breakdown of votes. Meanwhile, tally sheets collected by opposition volunteers from over two-thirds of the electronic voting machines indicate that González won by a more than 2-to-1 margin.
The tally sheets have long been considered the ultimate proof of election results in Venezuela. In previous presidential elections, the National Electoral Council published online the results of each of the more than 30,000 voting machines but the Maduro-controlled panel did not release any data this time, blaming an alleged cyberattack mounted by its opponents from North Macedonia.
Attorney General Tarek William Saab, a staunch Maduro ally, sought González's arrest after he failed to appear three times in connection with a criminal investigation into what it considers an act of electoral sabotage.
Saab told reporters the voting records the opposition shared online were forged and an attempt to undermine the National Electoral Council.
Experts from the United Nations and the Carter Center, which at the invitation of Maduro’s government observed the election, determined the results announced by electoral authorities lacked credibility. In a statement critical of the election, the U.N. experts stopped short of validating the opposition’s claim to victory, but they said the voting records it published online appear to exhibit all of the original security features.
Spain has been a major point of exodus for Venezuelans, particularly of those leading opposition to Maduro’s regime. They include Leopoldo López, who fled to Spain to reunite with his family in 2020, and Antonio Ledezma, who left for the European country in 2017.
Some 44,000 Venezuelans immigrated to Spain in the first six months of this year. The last government statistics from 2022 said that some 212,000 Venezuelans were then residing in Spain.
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Goodman reported from Miami and Wilson from Barcelona, Spain.
FILE - Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez waves to supporters during a political event at a square in the Hatillo municipality of Caracas, Venezuela, June 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File)
