Painful Shortages Of Certain Items Are Coming
By Michael Snyder/Economic Collapse Blog April 22, 2025
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We are about to find out what happens when thousands of very popular products are suddenly no longer available for sale. A lot of Amazon shoppers have been shocked to learn that some of their favorite products have already disappeared.
In fact, there are entire stores on Amazon that are now completely gone. Of course it isn't just Amazon that is facing an unprecedented crisis. Walmart, Target, Home Depot and our largest dollar store chains are all going to have to figure out new ways to fill their shelves in the months ahead.
Those that wish to export products to the United States will soon have to pay enormous port fees on top of the tariffs that have already been announced.
For certain products coming from China, that will mean paying port fees on top of tariffs of up to 245 percent.
Some companies will still attempt to sell Chinese-made products in the United States, but they will be forced to hike their prices extremely high.
But in many other cases, companies will simply decide that it no longer makes economic sense to sell those products in the United States.
This will increase demand for similar goods that are produced right here in the United States.
Of course there are a lot of instances where there are no similar goods made in the United States.
And even if all of our factories were running at full capacity, there is just no way that we could hope to replace the tsunami of products that is normally imported from China.
Yes, we can build new factories, but that will take years.
It also comes with a lot of risk.
Less than four years from now, a new administration could come in and totally reverse current trade policy.
If Chinese goods started pouring back into our country at that point, what would happen to those that invested giant mountains of money into new U.S. factories?
I don't think that we will see a huge wave of factory construction, because the risk of being wiped out when a new administration comes in is just too great.
I haven't heard anyone else talk about this.
Businesses do not like to make huge investments unless there is certainty about the outcome.
While U.S. CEOs debate about what to do, our stores will not be able to fill their shelves with things that are made in the United States.
We simply are not able to produce enough stuff.
So if other nations stop sending us the things that we need, there will be shortages.
Last week, we learned that Chinese-built and Chinese-owned trade vessels will soon be hit with massive new port fees every time they make a voyage to the United States...
The Federal Register notice posted by the US Trade Representative (USTR) on Thursday said the US government will charge fees on all Chinese-built and -owned ships docking in US ports based on net tonnage or goods carried on each voyage.
The new fees will be enforced in around 180 days' time, rolled out in a phased manner, and may be raised in coming years, according to the USTR notice.
The latest announcement backtracks from proposals floated in February to charge China-built ships of up to $1.5 million per port call, which had prompted a widespread industry backlash, Reuters reported.
So in addition to facing tariffs of up to 245 percent, a Chinese container ship that is carrying Chinese products across the Pacific could be hit with a port fee of up to 1.5 million dollars when it arrives.
This is going to absolutely kill trade with China.
Once these port fees go into effect, I don't know why anyone would still want to ship products from China to the United States.
Of course these new port fees will have a tremendous chilling effect on trade with everyone else too, because Chinese-made vessels will soon "represent 98% of the trade ships on the world's oceans"...
Many warned the government in letters and in testimony that the U.S. was in no position to win an economic war that placed ocean carriers using Chinese-made vessels in the middle. Soon, Chinese-made vessels will represent 98% of the trade ships on the world's oceans.
The good news, if you want to call it that, is that Chinese-built ships that are coming to the U.S. from nations other than China will be facing significantly lower port fees...
From October 14, Chinese-owned and operated ships will be charged $50 a net ton, a rate that will increase by $30 a year over the next three years.
Chinese-built ships owned by non-Chinese firms will be charged $18 a net ton, with annual fee increases of $5 over the same period.
But even at a lower level, these port fees are still going to really sting.
So what is the bottom line?
The bottom line is that if you want to buy a foreign-made product, you should get it now while you still can.
This is particularly true for anything made in China.
Already, we are witnessing a stunning increase in "canceled sailings by freight ships out of China"...
U.S. importers are being notified of an increase in canceled sailings by freight ships out of China as ocean carriers try to balance the pullback in orders resulting from President Trump's tariffs and the escalation of tensions in the trade war.
A total of 80 blank, or canceled, sailings out of China have been recorded by freight company HLS Group. It wrote in a recent note to clients that with the trade war between China and the U.S. leading to a demand plummet, carriers have started to suspend or adjust transpacific services.
We have never seen anything like this before.
As trade across the Pacific dries up, it is going to have a tremendous economic impact up and down our supply chains...
The impact of the diminished freight container traffic to North America will be significant for many links in the economy and supply chain, including the ports and logistics companies moving the freight. If each sailing was carrying 8,000 to 10,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units), that would equal a decline in freight traffic of between 640,000-800,000 containers, and lead to decreased crane operations at the ports, lower fees that could be collected, and declines in container pick-ups and transports by trucks, rails, and to warehouses for storage.
It isn't going to take long for us to start experiencing a lot of pain.
According to a report that was posted by Zero Hedge on Saturday, there are some cases where Chinese exporters "have opted to surrender their cargo to the shipping companies mid-voyage rather than deal with the new tariffs"...
The South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong-based English-language outlet, reported on April 10 that some Chinese exporters have opted to surrender their cargo to the shipping companies mid-voyage rather than deal with the new tariffs.
"No one will buy them after the tariffs are imposed," the publication quoted one client as saying to a Chinese exporter.
Mainland Chinese outlet Caixin reported that the port of Shanghai--normally bustling with ships--was virtually empty on the day after the United States imposed its 145 percent tariff. The outlet expects U.S.-China shipping to fall by half in the near future.
I have never seen this happen before.
We are talking about Chinese-made goods that were literally on the way to this country.
Needless to say, those exporters won't be sending anything else our way for the foreseeable future.
If there are products that you depend on that normally come from China, you should stock up now.
There will be shortages.
Of course not everything will be in short supply.
For many things, we can definitely produce the quantities that we need even if Chinese imports went to zero.
But in other cases, there will be supply crunches that will surpass anything that we witnessed during the pandemic.
Originally published at The Economic Collapse Blog
