Experts are telling us that the supply chain disruptions that we are facing are likely to be more severe than anything that we witnessed during the last pandemic. Anyone that believes that we can easily replace 438 billion dollars of imports from China is just being delusional. There are thousands of products that are made in China that are simply not made anywhere else. Yes, we will do what we can to mitigate the damage, but there is only so much that we can do. I just heard from one business owner that has already received numerous price increase notifications from his suppliers. And apparently there are already hundreds of products on Amazon that have had their prices raised substantially…
Amazon merchants are hiking prices for everything from diaper bags and refrigerator magnets to charm necklaces and other top-selling items as they confront higher import costs. E-commerce software company SmartScout tracked 930 products on Amazon that have seen increased prices since April 9, with an average jump of 29% in categories, including clothing, jewelry, household items, office supplies, electronics and toys.
In many other cases, products that are manufactured in China will no longer be coming to the United States at all. In fact, President Trump is even admitting that most Chinese businesses “won’t do any business here” as long as tariff rates remain this high…
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said recently that no one thinks the current status quo with China is sustainable. The president was asked by Time if he agrees with that sentiment.
“Oh I agree,” Mr. Trump responded. He said China “won’t do any business here, because at 145%, it’s going to be very rare that you see business.”
Nobody can deny that President Trump is quite correct about this, and the numbers that we are already seeing are quite staggering.
For example, it is being reported that the “volume of goods shipped from China that is scheduled to arrive at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach between the week of May 4 and May 10 has dropped 43%”…
US businesses began scaling back or canceling orders as President Trump ratcheted up the trade war with Beijing after returning to the White House.
The volume of goods shipped from China that is scheduled to arrive at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach between the week of May 4 and May 10 has dropped 43%, compared to the same period last year, according to container-tracking software provider Vizion.
Sadly, this is just the beginning.
Container bookings for shipments from China to the United States dropped by a staggering 64 percent during the first week of April compared to the previous week…
The drop in predicted arrivals at Los Angeles follows reports from data provider Vizion of a “crash” in container bookings in April. For shipments from China to the US, bookings fell 64pc in the first week of the month compared to the previous week.
Analysts blamed the crash on importers who were cancelling shipments to “reassess costs, timelines, and broader trade strategy”.
This is leaving more container ships half-empty – and prompting more shipping companies to cancel voyages in a bid to reduce losses and stop fees plummeting.
Imagine a truck that is speeding along at 70 miles per hour and someone slams the brakes all the way to the floor.
That is essentially what we are facing.
FreightWaves CEO Craig Fuller is warning that trucking activity out of the L.A. area is likely to drop 50 percent and we are likely to see “massive layoffs”…
Year-over-year trucking activity out of Los Angeles down 23%.
It will likely drop to 50% in the coming weeks if there isn’t trade war resolution.
Massive layoffs coming to the West Coast trucking sector
The bottom line is that a lot less stuff is going to be coming to our stores.
In fact, the president of the U.S.-China Business Council is convinced that “starting in a couple of weeks, we are just going to start running out of stuff”…
Some of the products likeliest to go missing from store shelves in the coming months will be lower-cost footwear, apparel, toys and electronics, for which manufacturing is heavily concentrated in China, Gold said. Other perishable items coming from China, like apple juice and fish, have limited shelf lives and were more difficult for retailers to stockpile.
“Like back during Covid where we had shortages of toilet paper, we are going to start seeing that in more and more goods,” said Sean Stein, president of the U.S.-China Business Council. “Starting in a couple of weeks, we are just going to start running out of stuff, and if the administration waits to resolve the problem until we have shortages and hoarding, that is just too late.”
His assessment was echoed by an expert that was interviewed by the New York Post…
China accounts for about 54% of all US containerized imports from Asia – from electronics, toys, apparel, furniture and building materials. It generally takes two to three weeks to make the journey from China to the West Coast ports.
“Things that can’t be inventoried, you’ll see (shortages) in a matter of weeks, maybe not even months,” Rita McGrath, strategic management scholar and professor at Columbia Business School, told The Post.
And the CEOs of Walmart, Target and Home Depot essentially told President Trump the same thing…
Earlier this week, America’s most powerful retail executives trooped into the White House to deliver a blunt prognosis: tariffs on Chinese goods risked causing “empty shelves” in two weeks without a change of course.
The three companies who attended the meeting – Walmart, Target and Home Depot – are among the most exposed to the president’s policies, which include tariffs of up to 145pc on Chinese goods and higher port fees for Chinese-made vessels.
We are heading into a full-blown nightmare.
Even if the U.S. and China were to reach a trade deal tomorrow, and that is definitely not going to happen, it would still take an extended period of time before our supply chains returned to normal…
Even if Trump were to reduce the tariffs, the disruption caused to the supply chain could take weeks or months to unravel, given the time it takes for ships to across the Pacific and for the other pieces of the supply chain to snap back into place.
“You have an eight-week period where volumes are going to crash before they can even come back up, and that’s if things return to normal,” said Dean Croke, principal analyst at DAT Freight and Analytics. “All this comes at a time of the year when volumes really should start to increase.”
For now, it appears that the Chinese are digging in for the long haul.
On Friday, we learned that China’s Politburo has decided to implement a plan to assist those that are being impacted by the trade war…
In an economic-analysis meeting on Friday, the 24-man Politburo, China’s main decision-making body headed by President Xi Jinping, said authorities would roll out specific plans to support companies and individuals affected by the trade war.
They pledged to “coordinate domestic economic work with international economic and trade engagements, resolutely focus on doing our own affairs, steadfastly expand high-level opening up, and focus on stabilizing employment, businesses, markets, and expectations”, according to a meeting readout released by Xinhua.
“By enhancing the certainty of high-quality development, we can effectively respond to the uncertainties brought by drastic changes in the external environment,” it said.
Here in the United States, those that are getting hammered by the trade war are just going to have to deal with it.
This is a really bad time for this to happen. Economic conditions were already starting to slow down, and a major conflict with Iran could erupt at any time.
It is often said that when it rains, it pours.
It is definitely raining now, and if the U.S. and China cannot reach a deal soon we are going to get absolutely soaked.
Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing. You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter. Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites. These are such troubled times, and people need hope. John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.