The US port strike that has shut down shipping along the country's Atlantic coast for the last three days has come to an end after dock workers struck a deal with port operators, reports The Guardian.

The International Longshoreman's Association (ILA) has reached a tentative agreement with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) for a 62% wage hike, and agreed to suspend its walkout temporarily until January.

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Both sides have said they will return to negotiate all remaining outstanding issues, but work will resume immediately in the meantime.

The strike involved 45,000 workers and 36 ports spanning the entire East Coast of the US from Texas to Maine, as previously reported by Undercurrent News.

The US imports as much as 260,000 metric tons of seafood worth $21.1 billion monthly, much of it arriving in ports along the coast that were shut down on Monday (Oct. 1) -- in particular the ports of Boston, Massachusetts; Houston, Texas; and Miami, Florida. 

According to Jim Gulkin, group managing director for Siam Canadian, although all frozen species that are shipped via sea freight were affected, shrimp from Asia and South America have been the most impacted items by volume.

While many importers have sought to bring seafood into the US into other ports not impacted by the strike in the meantime -- such as those on the West Coast -- the backups have not been as good, and containers will be hard to come by, another wholesaler warned.