Honda Motor said on Friday it would continue to adjust production at two North American car factories from 24 February to 2 March due to a parts shortage caused by disruptions at US west coast ports in the midst of protracted labour talks.

This came a day after Reuters reported two US Cabinet secretaries had joined congressional leaders, three governors and a big city mayor to push shipping lines and the dockworkers’ union to settle a contract dispute that has led to months of turmoil and cargo backups at 29 west coast ports.

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Worsening cargo congestion that the union and shippers blame on each other has slowed freight traffic since October at the ports, which handle nearly half of all US maritime trade and more than 70% of the country’s imports from Asia.

More recently, the shipping companies have sharply curtailed operations at the terminals, suspending the loading and unloading of cargo vessels for night shifts, holidays and weekends at the five busiest ports.

Work has continued around the clock in the dockyards, rail yards and terminal gates for most of the ports. Some smaller ports remained open to nighttime vessel operations as well, Reuters noted.

Honda told Reuters it expected output loss at the factories in Indiana and Canada during the week to be around 5,000 cars. The plants mainly build the popular Civic model, some of which have continually variable transmissions (CVT) shipped from Japan.

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Honda is currently reducing output at five North American car factories between 16 and 23 February for an estimated production loss of 20,000 cars.

“The supply situation will be a little bit better next week due to the delivery of more parts by air,” a spokesman told the news agency.