The stories and images of empty ports on the west coast have delighted fears that the Americans soon felt the direct effect of the current price war by President Donald Trump. And according to supply chain experts and other analysts, they are right to worry – it promises to be a cruel summer for consumers, retailers and the wider economy.
While the 145% price of Trump on Chinese products remains in place, and no commercial agreement in sight, there has already been a drop in manufacturing orders from China, and freight reservations and navigation in the United States have also dropped.
Analysts sound alarms on the consequences of prices for weeks, and now the benefits are starting to take shape in what could be added to a slow disaster. It takes weeks of goods to travel from China to the United States, which means that the increase or decrease in trade is not as simple as returning a switch.
Instead, the effects will be felt in stages, according to Apollo Global Management. And the United States reaches the tipping point.
- Early May: Consumers could start feeling effects in the following two weeks, when the containers arrived at American ports begins to stop.
- Mid-May: With less transport, the demand for trucking could slow down, causing empty shelves across the country.
- At the end of May, early June: Apollo expects dismissals to start in the trucking and retail industries while businesses react to a slowdown in sales. Freight dismissals have already increased.
- Mid-June: Torsten Slok, chief economist of Apollo, expects a recession to follow quickly, in the summer of 2025.
Of course, the exact calendar will vary depending on the product that the United States matters. Clothes and shoes are likely to be affected quickly because the United States obtains a large part of its Supply of each from China. Fast fashion, especially, could be more difficult to find. Children’s toys and return articles to school are also likely to be rare.
The leaders of Amazon, Home Depot and Walmart visited the White House last week to plead with Trump against prices that could disturb their businesses, but it is not clear where negotiations is between the United States and China, the countries giving contradictory accounts progress made so far.
“From a few weeks, we are just going to start lacking things,” said Sean Stein, president of the US-China Business Council,told NBC News Last week, by comparing shortages in the first days of the COVVI-19 pandemic. “If the administration awaits to solve the problem until we have shortages and hoarding, it’s just too late.”
Pre -orders will not save us
For the part of the Trump administration, the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has more or less raised concerns concerning empty shelves on Monday.
“We have excellent retailers,” said Bessent in an interview with Fox News. “I guess they pre -ordered.”
It is proven that certain companies, in particular the largest retailers with a large area, the inventories boring before earlier this year. The port of Los Angeles, the largest port in North America and the port of Long Beach Growth of imported goods reported In February, and noted that retailers moved goods before “the prices provided for on certain imported goods and materials”. In fact, although February is generally the slowest month of the year for freight from China due to the Lunar New Year, it was the most frequented February for three years, according to Hackett Associates, which provides research and advice to international maritime industry.
Although the ports have not yet reported the figures that Hackett Associates analyzes in March, it is expected that the data should reflect another busy month. May, however, will be another story.
“At this stage, retailers should withdraw and rely on built stocks, at least long enough to see what will then happen,” said Jonathan Gold, vice-president of the supply chain and customs policies to the National Federation of Retail, said earlier this month.
But this inventory will be exhausted and retailers and consumers could face shortages following. Imports should fall at least 20% from one year to the next During the second half of 2025, according to Hackett Associates.
Sea-Intelligence, a supply chain researcher who focuses on the expedition of containers, reports The number of empty navigations – when an ocean carrier jumps for a stop provided in a port – on transpacific commercial roads “already increased drastically last week”, often with little or no notice.
“When we examine the data, it is quite obvious that the impact of the trade war has caused a break from many sender, or to cancel squarely,” said Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence, in a press release. “This in turn reduces the request for capacity on container ships, to which the carriers react by canceling the navigation.”
This story was initially presented on Fortune.com
