Shipless
Don't worry! Trade wars are good and are easy to win.
On Friday morning, West Coast port officials told CNN about a startling sight: Not a single cargo vessel had left China with goods for the two major West Coast ports in the past 12 hours. That hasn’t happened since the pandemic.
Six days ago, 41 vessels were scheduled to depart China for the San Pedro Bay Complex, which encompasses both the Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach in California. On Friday, it was zero.
[…]
“That’s cause for alarm,” said Mario Cordero, the CEO of the Port of Long Beach. “We are now seeing numbers in excess of what we witnessed in the pandemic” for cancellations and fewer vessel arrivals.
The busiest ports in the country are experiencing steep declines in cargo. The Port of Long Beach is seeing a 35-40% drop compared to normal cargo volume. The Port of Los Angeles had a 31% drop in volume this week, and the Port of New York and Jersey says it’s also bracing for a slowdown. On Wednesday, the Port of Seattle said it had zero container ships in the port, another anomaly that hasn’t happened since the pandemic.
“That’s because just nothing is being shipped over,” port commissioner Ryan Calkins told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.
We all remember the pandemic, right? Where disruptions in global trade led to supply chain problems and helped to contribute to global inflation?
Good times, yes?
That was caused by an unexpected, worldwide outbreak of a novel virus.
The current fun is being done utterly and totally by choice!
“If things don’t change quickly, I’m talking about the uncertainty that we’re seeing, then we may be seeing empty products on the shelves. This is now going to be felt by the consumer in the coming 30 days,” said Cordero.
Upwards of 63% of the cargo that flows into the Port of Long Beach is from China — the largest share of any US port. But that number is down from 72% in 2016 as retailers shift away from China over simmering trade tensions.
Even so, China still represents a major source of imports into the United States. Maersk, the second largest shipping line in the world, told CNN the cargo volume between the United States and China has fallen by 30-40% compared to normal.
“If we don’t start to see a de-escalation of the situation with China, if we don’t start to see more of those trade deals, then we could be in a situation where some of these effects get more entrenched and are more adverse,” said Maersk CEO Vincent Clerc.
This will affect American consumers and lead to price increases in available goods because that’s how economics works. Less supply and constant, if not increased demand, leads to increased prices.
There is also the fact that people will lose jobs.
Meanwhile, Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, keeps grinning his way through interviews as if all of this is a combination of no big deal/something that is just happening as opposed to something being created by this administration.
I continue to not understand what opening of markets and lowering of tariffs he is talking about.
Again, I share the following:
Further, the “low tariff” that he notes is in place in the context of current negotiations, is still higher than when Trump came into office. It is all just so much confused, self-contradictory nonsense.
One last clip.
This is just nuts. While some businesses will eat some of the tariffs, those businesses are the ones doing the importing. You know: businesses in the US. And the notion that domestic producers won’t raise prices is insane and runs counter to how economics work.
Copy that.
Soon enough the shelves at Costco and Walmart and Kroger will be as empty as the cranial cavities of Trump and his faithful lackeys whose heads are firmly planted in their anal cavities.
Title should be Shipless due to the Witless.
I thought the headline said spineless, but that applies to almost any Trump policy.
This is an important element of Trump’s plan to make us richer. You don’t need thirty dolls; two or three are enough! Americans will become wealthy by not spending any money. Businesses thrive when consumers don’t buy.
Trump announced a great reset in US-China relations as a result of the trade talks in London. I’m inclined to disbelieve any pronouncements from the Trump administration. I don’t know what China has said.
Let’s have a 10% wealth tax every year on Lutnick and everyone who supports tariffs. See how they feel about “eating” that.
Steve
Here is my sign for this week’s Tesla Takedown which is right on topic with this post. https://bsky.app/profile/jehrler.bsky.social/post/3lovuaamn2s2c
“And the notion that domestic producers won’t raise prices is insane and runs counter to how economics work.”
This kind of reminds me of the idea that the best form of government is a dictator who has been installed by a Board of Directors and who has never, ever, in any form sought public office.
It’s a fantasy world.
So it’s clear to me that the Trump tariff strategy is to impose a 10% US tariff on goods and services coming from ANY country across the globe regardless of trade imbalance or the absence of any tariffs, duties, sales taxes that another country may have on US goods.
That would be Trump’s reordering of global trade.
The immediate beneficiary of this policy will be the US Treasury, and the “losers” will be American consumers and US businessmen that import products from anywhere in the world, it will be their $$ enriching the US Treasury.
The “trade imbalance” was a ruse.
Tell if I’m wrong
Howard Lutnick shows us why, every single day that he clown-explains and explains Trump’s tariffs, exactly why people such as himself should again be subject to the same high marginal tax rates that were effective during the Eisenhower years – 90%.
This Administration – there is a very strong ‘let them eat cake’ vibe.
Strongly recommend youtuber Sal M–??– on “whats up with shipping”. Daily counts of container ship traffic, destinations, trends, etc. Totally nonpolitical expert analysis.
Did i say — like his work alot?
The chart of tariff rates is wrong. The tariff on goods from China is not 34%, but 145%.
I don’t know about the rates on the others, but I expect this chart is using old data, and all the other rates have changed per the whims and gastrointestinal issues of our esteemed President while he is sitting on the toilet at 2am.
@Bobert:
If there’s any thought behind this tariff stuff, a big if, it’s that when his new model prez, McKinley, had tariffs, he had no income tax, personal or corporate. Tariffs are regressive, the income tax, at least in theory, is progressive.
According to their own definitions, empathy is a bad thing. Thus, I feel neither pain nor remorse about reinstalling 90% as the top marginal tax rate. After all, those rich people can learn to put up with only 2 new cars instead of 30 this Christmas! It’s quite clear they’re not using that money to create jobs, so they really can learn to live without.
And if they make any social media posts about how they don’t like it, the government can send them a personal email telling them to self-deport immediately.
This has to be among the most economically and geopolitically unhinged series of actions by any state ever in regard to trade policy.
The nearest parallel I can think of offhand is Napoleon attempting to impose the “Continental System”, but that was in the context of actual war.
President Obama’s words of advice are always worth considering:
“Don’t do stupid shit.”
@Gavin: “After all, those rich people [who voted Republican, supported MAGA, spread lies about Kamala Harris, and STILL support Trump overall] can learn to put up with only 2 new cars instead of 30 this Christmas!”
Friendly amendment proffered . . . 🙂
America runs on “stuff.”
Buying, selling, distributing, influencing, packaging, recycling, and yes, also manufacturing “stuff.” Even if some particular “stuff” is sourced in good ‘ol USA, it is supported upstream and downstream by imported “stuff” that maintains the flow of the supply chain. Without our “stuff ” a consumer economy has got nothing to consume.
We are in the pause before “it” hits the fan moment. Without major course correction, this time one year from now, will look very different. The rationalizations from the White House will be flying out hot and heavy.
Watch for dispensations issued to Trump insiders and suck ups, plus the expansion of black markets and smuggling.
I can see a fuzzy rationale for hitting countries with a fake “reciprocal” tariff as a massive jolt to coerce them into rushed negotiations in which they will make concessions they would never have made in normal trade discussions. But if the rest of America’s trading partners are stuck with a 10% rate on exports to the US come what may, it’s not apparent why they would bother even opening the door to a new trade deal. America has nothing to bargain with.
Lutnick seems to me to be employed mainly as a press secretary specialising in trade matters. He is constantly in the media, telling lies and contradicting himself, but above all telling us what an awesome leader and brilliant tactician he has for a boss. It’s likely he’s been sidelined from the decision-making process along with Navarro, while Co-president Musk has been displaced by co-president Miller.
If anyone still hasn’t figured out that the intended result of the Trump regime’s entire agenda is the absolute destruction of the United States, this might be a good time to wake the eff up.