When Tariff Shortages Arrive, Here’s What Might Be Missing
A shipping slowdown at West Coast ports is the latest in a series of dominoes that could lead to tariff-induced shortages in American stores.
Import volume will be down by about a third this week, Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, told a Bloomberg panel on Friday.
“The trucker hauling four or five containers today, next week she probably hauls two or three,” he said. “The dockworkers are no longer going to see overtime and double-shifts, they’re going to probably work less than a traditional work-week right off the bat.”
Seroka’s port is an important bellwether for trade into the United States: About 40 percent of the shipping containers brought into the country arrive in Los Angeles. By comparison, container arrivals at the port dropped by about 30 percent in March 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic hit. If Seroka’s estimates are correct—and data from websites that track shipping activity suggest they are—then the country may be headed for a supply chain disruption on par with the pandemic.
The biggest difference is that this mess is a deliberate choice. The Trump administration has imposed a 10 percent universal tariff on nearly all imports to the U.S., with tariffs of 145 percent on goods from China. (Higher tariffs on dozens
Article from Reason.com
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