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Retailers will soon have only about 7 weeks of full inventories left

• alchemist1e9 1y ago
  Based on big box retailers in my area this is optimistic as with a keen eye one can already see huge numbers of missing products.
• cynicalsecurity 1y ago
  I've never thought America could ever experience lack of goods. "Deficit" was a very well known term during the Soviet times and it was one of the reasons the Soviet Union collapsed. If Trump wants to destroy the United States, he is acting very efficiently by repeating the same mistake the Soviet leaders were making.
  • mstade 1y ago
    It's weird to see the party claiming to be for free markets essentially go all-in on central planning. Black is white and up is down, I s'pose.
    • HideousKojima 1y ago
      How are tariffs (and now basically significant tariffs on only China now) in any way similar to a centrally planned economy? Tariffs have existed in every country capable of enforcing them for all of human history, and they existed in the US prior to Trump, and will continue to exist after Trump. Even countries we have supposed "free trade" agreements with still get tariffed (and impose tariffs on our goods).
      • ForHackernews 1y ago
        They're taxing certain things and then carving out exemptions for other things. Personal favors and political ideology driving the economy instead of market forces.
        • HideousKojima 1y ago
          That's how "free trade" agreements have worked for decades too. Look at the specific categories Canada puts protective tariffs on despite our trade agreements with them (in particular their agricultural goods which have quotas after which massive tariffs are applied). Governments worldwide have been subsidizing and otherwise favoring specific companies and industries for as long as civilization has existed. I don't like it when Trump does it too, but I don't understand the people acting like this is somehow a new and unprecedented thing.
          • jjulius 1y ago
            >I don't like it when Trump does it too, but I don't understand the people acting like this is somehow a new and unprecedented thing. Sans near-total embargoes on goods from a country, have we ever imposed sweeping tariffs of 145% on all goods coming from one of our most-imported trade partners? No, no we have not. Certain tariffs were very targeted for specific reasons, you are correct. But those were not blanket-applied haphazardly at such high levels. Hence, "unprecedented".
            • HideousKojima 1y ago
              We've had an infinity% tariff on all goods from Cuba for decades
              • jjulius 1y ago
                Those are broader economic embargoes, not tariffs. A lot more is involved in that situation and it's much more nuanced than what's happening with tariffs today. Hence my comment, "sans near-total embargoes on a country". Tariffs are taxes on goods allowed to enter the country - embargoes are a total elimination of trade (meaning we can't receive and we can't ship to) with a country. This is another apples/oranges comparison.
          • tim333 1y ago
            Many counties manage agriculture by having quotas for farm products and some price regulation. If you don't do that in good years the crop price plummets, farmers go broke and then in poor years there are shortages because of that. Canada or the EU doing that and sorting their own food isn't the huge conspiracy against America that Trump seems to think it is.
      • hyperpape 1y ago
        "How dare you judge me for drinking a case of beer. I know for a fact you had two beers this evening!"
      • jjulius 1y ago
        >Tariffs have existed in every country capable of enforcing them for all of human history, and they existed in the US prior to Trump, and will continue to exist after Trump. Even countries we have supposed "free trade" agreements with still get tariffed (and impose tariffs on our goods). To what degree relative to what we're seeing now, though?
        • HideousKojima 1y ago
          Much, much more than what we're seeing now, historically. Including outright banning all or nearly all foreign trade. See Japan under the Tokugawa Shogunate for one of the more extreme examples.
          • jjulius 1y ago
            Apples, meet oranges. Japan outright banning trade with all other countries is different than implementing tariffs.
      • mstade 1y ago
        Others have responded more eloquently than I to this, so I won't. All I will say is I never equated tariffs with central planning, but I can see how from context you drew that conclusion. Tariffs aren't the only thing the republicans are doing under Trump, and taken as a whole the current administration smells – to me at least – a lot more politburo than the free trade champions of yesteryear. (Well, more like decade at this point.)
      • cyberax 1y ago
        Remember when Trump threatened Amazon for even thinking about showing the tariffs on the payment screen? Very free market.
        • HideousKojima 1y ago
          He called it a "hostile and political act", when did he threaten them?
          • cyberax 1y ago
            > when did he threaten them? When he called it "a hostile and political act". Remember when just officially telling people that they are not horses turned out to be a free speech violation?
    • jimbokun 1y ago
      That party has been gone for awhile. Trump has never shown any affinity for free markets.
  • tonyhart7 1y ago
    well the goods are there, its not like they stop flowing or something just need 30% tax on top of it edit: ok, I didnt know that bussiness stop buying, but they must buy somethings in the future right either buy from other tax exempt or buy thing with add value tax
    • nemomarx 1y ago
      Have you seen the news at the ports? less containers coming in. the goods will not necessarily keep flowing if the price goes up and their margin goes away
    • hundreddaysoff 1y ago
      I think the theory is like this: 1. new 30% tax 2. people stop buying so many goods due to (1) 3. due to lack of demand, our shipping industry seizes up and goods stop flowing, at least till (1) goes away My main source for that theory is https://medium.com/@ryan79z28/im-a-twenty-year-truck-driver-i-will-tell-you-why-america-s-shipping-crisis-will-not-end-bbe0ebac6a91 https://medium.com/@ryan79z28/im-a-twenty-year-truck-driver-...
      • gymbeaux 1y ago
        There’s a bill[1] sitting in the House of Representatives that would abolish the IRS and replace all tax code with a consumption tax. In typical fashion they’ve written it so it seems like the flat consumption tax will be something like 24% but it’s actually 30% (they word it as something like “24% of the total is tax” which really means “the tax is 30%”). I’m curious when they plan on deploying this. It specifies a 3-year schedule so you think okay is this to be signed into law in 2025 so that the IRS is abolished during the next election year, or are they going to wait a year or two and have the IRS abolishment only “trigger” if Republicans continue to control the government beyond 2028? Or perhaps they will push it through if/when Democrats retake some or all of Congress in 2026? One thing’s for sure though, the 1% will use cryptocurrency to dodge this consumption tax and it will (as usual) disproportionately affect the lower and middle classes, who aren’t as savvy in tax fraud/evasion/“loopholes”. https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/25/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/25/t...
  • gymbeaux 1y ago
    Why do you think he’s bullish on Bitcoin?
    • pphysch 1y ago
      Because it's an easy political win among demographics that care about cryptocurrency. ... You don't actually believe he cares about Bitcoin or the technology, right?
      • gymbeaux 1y ago
        He cares about it insofar as it’s a tool he can use and abuse to make money. Obviously he has no interest in or understanding of blockchains. When the stock market (and confidence in the U.S.) falls, people typically flock to gold and bonds. If the U.S. is seen as unstable and at risk of not making debt payments, bonds are a bad place to move money into. That leaves gold (and to a lesser extent foreign stock markets). With crypto though- that’s a con man’s wet dream. Volatile. No government oversight. Crypto pump and dumps are literally legal (though come close to being fraud, as people like Du Kwon have learned).
• toddmorey 1y ago
  Curious if there is anyone here who genuinely sees this as short-term pain / long-term gain for American economic interests. That is of course the political angle, but I've yet to see an economist concur with that theory. EDIT: I can find very few voices (not currently working directly for the administration). There's Jeff Ferry who believes "tariffs imposed during the 19th century spurred industrialization and ultimately positioned America as a global superpower". (That historical view is uncommon and wouldn't account for the current realities of global supply chains.)
  • Scarblac 1y ago
    Depends on how long term. A crash of the global economy may be the best way to prevent at least some climate change catastrophe.
    • lumost 1y ago
      If economic activity is linear with co2 production, the crash would need to be the most extreme economic depression in history to have an impact eg 75% reduction in global GDP. A 75% reduction in food production would surely cause the largest global famine yet recorded.
      • Scarblac 1y ago
        Well yes, but so will climate change itself.
    • izzydata 1y ago
      This will never happen willingly. Whenever it does happen it won't be by choice and will be because civilization has run out of material to produce stuff or too much of the Earth has become inhospitable. At least in the extreme long term it is a self correcting problem.
  • AznHisoka 1y ago
    Why is this a “political” angle? If you believe its for a long term gain, then you believe in a certain economic theory that others may not believe. What does politics hace anything to do with that?
• foobar1962 1y ago
  American retailers. The rest of the word is only seeing rushes on popcorn, which we're eating as we wait to see the what happens.
  • betaby 1y ago
    Prices are climbing up in Canada. So, no, I don't see Canadians rush on popcorn.
• vanc_cefepime 1y ago
  https://archive.is/QKowS https://archive.is/QKowS
• oldpersonintx 1y ago
  [dead]
• k4rli 1y ago
  *American retailers An important detail.
  • csomar 1y ago
    Huawei stuff is on a hot sale in Malaysia. I was looking for laptops the other day and not only they have a 10% discount but they are bundling around 30% of the laptop value in free stuff along with it: https://consumer.huawei.com/my/offer/laptops/matebook-x-pro-buy/ https://consumer.huawei.com/my/offer/laptops/matebook-x-pro-...
  • buyucu 1y ago
    I'm sure we'll experience shortages of popcorn when things get really hot.
• macinjosh 1y ago
  Politics aside. American big box stores are full of so much junk no one actually needs. It is good for there to be a tax on it. Reducing consumption is great for the environment and our sanity.
  • the_mitsuhiko 1y ago
    We don't produce products on someone needing it, but someone buying it. If there are these products then people buy them and seemingly want them. The US does not tax trash, it taxes the origin of products. That applies regardless of if it's good or bad.
  • carlosjobim 1y ago
    I somewhat agree with you. But let's consider a normal supermarket (in almost any country in the world) 80% of the aisles are full of junk and literal poison: Sugared cereal, soda, low quality beer, hyper-processed snacks and cookies, frozen slop food, etc. Then furthest in the back you have the fresh produce: Eggs, vegetables, meat and chicken, fish sometimes, dairy and bread. The good stuff. Now look down the shopping carts of your fellow shoppers: Filled to the brim with big boxes of the most unhealthy sewage on offer. They are subsidizing your shopping for quality ingredients from near and far. I think it's the same with other stores. The low quality junk that appeals to the average shopper is subsidizing the quality niche item that you need to buy.
    • junga 1y ago
      > Eggs, vegetables, meat and chicken, fish sometimes, dairy and bread. Thank you. I didn't realize until now that some cultures/regions distinguish between meat and chicken. Had to turn 41 for learning this.
      • deadbabe 1y ago
        There’s meat, game, and chicken.
  • gruez 1y ago
    >American big box stores are full of so much junk no one actually needs. It is good for there to be a tax on it. Seems pretty paternalistic to me. Why not let people decide for themselves whether they "actually need" the $5 plastic trinket from china? Do you not trust adults to make informed decisions on what they're buying?
• bArray 1y ago
  > While President Donald Trump pressed pause on his sweeping tariff regimen and placed a 10% blanket tax on other countries, he taxed China more. He placed a 145% tariff on China, which retaliated with a 120% duty on American goods. No trade deal has been made, and it is unclear whether there are negotiations happening. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has put the onus on China to come to the table and ink a deal. Still, just under half of the port’s business emanates from China, Seroka explained. So things could be bleak until then. Fundamentally this is a game of chicken, and China will definitely blink first. This will be for a few reasons: 1. Unemployment in China is rocketing. Prior to the trade war in February it was sitting at an estimated 16.9% [1] (although it's difficult to believe the stats). In the US it sits at about 4.2% [2], which feels about right with the UK at 4.4% [3]. China doesn't have the "disadvantage" of a significant welfare system, but these people will become increasingly desperate to survive and burden the system in one way or another. 2. With unemployment so high in China, demand for jobs is increased and the salaries are decreased. With less excess money, domestic spending is largely reduced. With the excess stock produced for the US market no longer being delivered, manufacturers look to dump into the domestic market at below cost just to recoup some of their investment and to pay back the supply chain. Remember that with such low margins, manufacturers often get supplies on the promise of payment upon selling the goods they prepare. You're looking at complete supply chain disruption from top to bottom even if the manufacturer didn't export to the US. 3. The Chinese housing market continues to be an extremely large problem. Housing represents approximately a third of their economy and you have several key problems. Prior to the trade war, Chinese property developers were having customers buy properties (with mortgages) before ground was broken and using this money and borrowing to develop the properties at relatively low margins. Due to corruption and corner cutting, a considerable number of these buildings were "tofu dregs" (meaning poorly constructed). Despite these cost cutting measures, there was still not enough money available to develop the promised properties. This lead to the likes of Evergrande, Country Garden, Zhongzhi, Vanke, etc, to (begin to) fail. The customer's money is gone and the bank paid it out to the developer, so the customer is still on the hook for a property that doesn't exist - the bank tells them to pay up and to take up their issues with the property developer. Even those that managed to get a property found that the developers were desperately liquidating properties at discount rates to cover debt interest, lowering the value of properties in the market. With reduced income, increased mortgage rates due to instability, some look to sell their properties and escape the backlog of missed mortgage payments. Those people may find their property devalued by some 50%, and that they still have an outstanding debt despite selling the property and receiving no equity due to the devaluation of the property. Although not outwardly said, the Chinese leadership have long considered themselves at war with the US. They have celebrated every issue the US has had, reacted negatively when the US experiences wins, and generally want to see the US fail. We're talking about the same CCP of the Mao Zedong era that considered the UK, US and Japan as enemies to crush. This is why that despite very obvious economic issues being experiences, the CCP refuse to negotiate. > “What we’re going to see next is retailers have about five to seven weeks of full inventories left, and then the choices will lessen,” Seroka told CNBC. That doesn’t mean shelves will be empty, but in Seroka’s hypothetical, it could mean if you’re out shopping for a blue shirt, you may see 11 purple ones—but only one blue that isn’t your size and is costlier. Maybe you can't find a blue shirt for a while and have to wear a purple one whilst textile manufacturing is scaled up in other asian/middle-eastern nations, but things could be far worse. > Earlier Tuesday, Gabriela Santos, JPMorgan Asset Management chief market strategist for the Americas, told CNBC: “Time is running out to see a lessening of the tariffs on China.” Everyone knows the tariffs are unsustainable, she said, but markets need to see them actually drop. Translation: The tariffs will affect our bottom line. Remember that JPMorgan as an entity do not care if jobs are lost in either the US (historically) or China (currently), as long as it does not affect their margins. The idea that JPMorgan does well and so does the US populace is wishful thinking. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-youth-jobless-rate-rises-169-february-2025-03-20/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-youth-jobless-rat... [2] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate [3] https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotin...
• varelse 1y ago
  [dead]
• joleyj 1y ago
  ... says Bill Maher.
• faefox 1y ago
  I don't think the population at large fully appreciates just how bad things could (and most likely will) get once these pre-tariff stocks are depleted. There is no magic wand to stand up new supply chains for the gazillion products we import from China overnight or even in the next several years. This promises to be more dramatic than the COVID supply shock only this time the damage will be entirely self-inflicted and - maybe - unrecoverable.
  • colechristensen 1y ago
    The markets continue to assume that there won't be any impact. When they do talk honestly you see Bloomberg interview finance leaders saying they aren't making big bets because they have no idea what to expect.
    • chasd00 1y ago
      > they have no idea what to expect. that's the key. "the subprime risk is contained", remember that? Anyone who claims they know what the economy is going to do 6 months from now should prove it with their stock portfolio.
  • joering2 1y ago
    Sadly I agree with unrecoverable. Not only China is not stupid and is not waiting around, but also this idea that American people under democratic system can withstand longer oppression than a hard core regime that makes people missing every day, is astonishing. We will have Americans riot on the streets, meanwhile Chinese people will just get a tad smaller rice bowls. And then you have Canada, India and most significant countries there that this Administration continues to offend. Canada is going thru rounds of serious talks to take up large amounts of goods produced in China, so is India. We might be at the point that if/when a new Administration comes and is ready to restart talks, China may say "sorry we don't have anymore hands/factories to produce goods and we are very happy with what we sale to Canada/China/[insert any country name that is not US]". Side note, how is bringing back manufacturing really what American people want? Do you want to live next to a huge factory polluting air and creating unbearable noise? You think you children can or want to work as hard as Chinese folks doing repetitive tasks in stinky inhumane factories? At what rate? $2 per day? The reason it all got pushed outside of USA is exactly because the level of lifestyle Americans wanted and like. Now apparently we are being told by this Administration that "having cheap goods is not American dream." God help us all!
• inverted_flag 1y ago
  What's everyone stocking up on before the shortages begin?
  • fnordpiglet 1y ago
    Electronic components. In the Trump economic crisis the dollar will be worthless and we will barter with capacitors and IC.
  • linsomniac 1y ago
    I was looking at that ~5 months ago, but with the eye to also building up savings, so not just spendinding willy-nilly. We ended up deciding not to replace/upgrade an computers or other electronics, my first-gen M1 macbook I was thinking about refreshing but didn't REALLY need it.
  • selimthegrim 1y ago
    Auto parts.
• mustyoshi 1y ago
  Next week's volume will be down, but the next next week is back up to last year's volume...?
• deadeye 1y ago
  We are at an inflection point in manufacturing. The next industrial revolution will combine AI and robots. Manufacturing jobs of the future will be fewer and higher in the value chain, requiring technical abilities. Workers won't be mindless stamping parts over and over. Now, the question is, do you want our adversaries to develop and own this new era or do you want the US to lead this next generation of industrialization? Finally, if you don't think China is our adversary, then we're not living in the same reality.
  • varelse 1y ago
    [dead]
  • mvid 1y ago
    Owning automation and high tech manufacture is likely important for the country. It’s too bad we have the absolute least qualified person and party to pull it off in charge
  • gs17 1y ago
    > or do you want the US to lead this next generation of industrialization? The current administration's actions are not meaningfully helping push us towards that. There are plenty of things they could do to help motivate that, but what they've done so far isn't really in that direction.
  • morkalork 1y ago
    The USA has sleep walked into an awkward position: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-03-21/-chinese-military-companies-permeate-us-tech-supply-chain https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-03-21/-chine... https://militarnyi.com/en/news/usa-unable-to-make-drones-without-components-from-china/ https://militarnyi.com/en/news/usa-unable-to-make-drones-wit...
  • dayvigo 1y ago
    AGI which will lead to ASI is going to happen before 2030, and the US is going to lose because of tariffs. Thinking in terms of decades rather than years will be a fatal mistake.
• qwertox 1y ago
  Add to this the lack of interest of serving others: https://x.com/jasonvonholmes/status/1910643605896908821 https://x.com/jasonvonholmes/status/1910643605896908821 TLDW: "Americans are a bunch of babies, they're hard to work with", which basically applies to all developed countries. It's the same in Germany.
  • serial_dev 1y ago
    Can't watch the video now, but when I worked on a smart home project, they worked with manufacturers in China Shenzhen because they are just that much better, there is an entire industry designing, manufacturing, inspecting, packaging stuff the way you want it, everything done in weeks even for a small company. European companies, at least in this niche were not only more expensive, but worse quality, slower, more bureaucratic. Now, how this anecdote translates to other industries, of course I don't know, but Shenzhen, I was told, it's something hard to even imagine as a European.
    • Loughla 1y ago
      There sure are a butt load of 'look at how great China is' posts on here lately. Any thread about tariffs has a large number of these kinds of posts. I want to think it's organic, but the Internet has ruined me. I have to believe they're shills.
      • seivan 1y ago
        [dead]
      • rstuart4133 1y ago
        > I have to believe they're shills. I'm sure there are shills here, but the video is reflects my experience. I'm Australian, so for me it's comparing Australian and US companies vs Chinese companies. The broad picture he paints is exactly right. But he gets the nuance all wrong, particularly when he called Americans "cry babies". To understand why, you have to appreciate just how hard the Chinese fight for business. One example: we were after samples of LPO batteries for a few, contacted a few sites. When they asked why were where hesitant, we told them we needed a slightly different form factor, and different control from the BMS. They said "oh we can do that", sent customized samples to us for same price and said when we wanted real quantities the price would be the same as the unaccustomed ones. To be clear: they had to build a new PCB for the BMS. Some deal with some DC motors: we needed different shafts and current ratings. They created customized for us (with different shafts!) at no extra charge. The Chinese sales people are not just your typical order takers you deal with in the USA. They have in depth knowledge of the product and how it can be customized. They speak English, and seem to be always contactable regardless of the hour. They seem to have engineering teams on call to back them up. They must have literally a small army of tertiary trained people sitting in rooms with nothing better to do that provide that level of service to every Tom, Dick and Harry who walks in off the street. It would send a Western company broke. Remember: China has the population of roughly USA and Europe combined. Yet, it still has parts that are very poor, little better than sustenance farming. This produces a steady stream of very bright young adults looking for a possible way out, which the government provides: tertiary education. It doesn't guarantee then a job at the end, it might just be a sales job at these manufacturing companies that pay little better than MacDonald's in the USA. Nonetheless, that's still better than prospects at home. They've been doing this for decades now. And it's still happening. From https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2024.2392688 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2024.2... quote "Using data from official statistical sources and a nationally representative survey, we find that since 2001, China’s agricultural labor force has declined by over 50 percent—a loss of over 200 million smallholders, probably the largest in human history. ... The 150 million remaining smallholders". From https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361169258_Reasons_for_college_major-job_mismatch_and_labor_market_outcomes_Evidence_from_China https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361169258_Reasons_f... quote "Almost a quarter of recent college graduates in China are working in jobs that are not related to their college major". The narratives you see here imply Chinese engineering talent is better than the USA's, or they work harder or longer, or god help us "American Companies are Cry Babies". Nope, it's nothing like that. It's just a huge education pipeline along with the raw human material to feed it producing very cheap engineering talent. It will end, just like it did in Japan, once that raw material runs out. From that link they are down to just 150 million people working on small farms now - around 10% of their population. The bad news is: 150 million is also about 1/3 of the USA's population.
• misiek08 1y ago
  Again, like during COVID, few people will earn gazillions. They will have stock and they will push it slowly into market with extremely high prices accepted by consumers. It is very smart what they are doing, like always - and the only thing that matters is money.
• mindcrash 1y ago
  April 27 2025: Port of Seattle - EMPTY April 30 2025: Port of Rotterdam - Congesting shipment containers originally inbound towards the United States but halted (by Chinese exporters?). Also risking storage and transhipment of containers inbound to Rotterdam. (Heard on local news a few minutes ago) If Trump keeps this up, within ~12 weeks he is not going to destroy the economy of the United States but the entire West...
  • colechristensen 1y ago
    >If Trump keeps this up, within ~12 weeks he is not going to destroy the economy of the United States but the entire West... He'll find someone to blame for forcing him to change direction.
• mediumsmart 1y ago
  I think they want to impose tariffs on everyone and then remove them from all that are willing to sanction china and help isolating it. 7 weeks should be more than enough to pull that off or fail. How beneficial it would be for the american economy either way I don't know. I mean all these people are not intelligent. They are just busy.
  • CharlieDigital 1y ago
    Sanction China to what ends? For what objective?
  • thuanao 1y ago
    BRICS is larger than G7 now by GDP and most of the world has deep trade relations with China. US bluff is called. They can’t win a war with China, militarily or materially. US wasted half a century and trillions on lost wars, instead of investing in its citizens. China did the opposite. And those fruits are just beginning to ripen.
    • twothreeone 1y ago
      > They can’t win a war with China Nobody wins in that war, that's why either side is so reluctant to start it. > BRICS is larger than G7 now by GDP That's BS. Easy to debunk. Try harder. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRICS#/media/File:BRICS_AND_G7_GDP_Nominal_share_between_1990_to_2024.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRICS#/media/File:BRICS_AND_G7...
      • thuanao 1y ago
        Current membership of BRICS (BRICS+) is larger GDP than G7. Either side!? Only the USA speaks of China as having no right to exist and attacks Chinese sovereignty openly at every opportunity. The USA started the trade war, not China. US leadership and its propaganda news channels constantly speak of war with China. Not as a war to defend US territory but as a war to topple the Chinese government. The current defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, wrote in his book "American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free", that if Trump could return to the White House and Republicans could take power, "Communist China will fall—and lick its wounds for another two hundred years". Hegseth said China “are literally the villains of our generation”, and warned, "If we don’t stand up to communist China now, we will be standing for the Chinese anthem someday".
• fudged71 1y ago
  Cue toilet paper panic Part II. Interesting to see how this plays out.
  • deadbabe 1y ago
    Big Toilet Paper really doesn’t want Americans to get into using bidets, so they will make sure there is enough supply to feed the panic buying.
  • toast0 1y ago
    I mean, I don't doubt it, but I don't think the US imports much toilet paper. Not that factual basis is required for a panic.
• laweijfmvo 1y ago
  Can we NOT start another fake scarcity scare? Businesses are importing less (from China, in this case) due to tariffs because they expect demand to drop due to the increased prices that would be passed down to consumers. They are not going to stop importing goods that have inelastic demand, where everyone will just have to absorb the higher prices. PLEASE do not start panic buying, which does create [temporary] shortages and generally causes unnecessary harm :/
  • hnav 1y ago
    that's basically the goal here, getting people to panic spend to squeeze the last little bit out of the COVID debacle before things return to normal.
  • codezero 1y ago
    It's the US, we are definitely going to panic buy, and we'll do it at the very last second to make sure the stress and shock is attenuated.
  • nitwit005 1y ago
    I agree we won't see empty shelves, excepting maybe some food items, as if people don't buy things due to the higher price, they'll just sit on the shelves. I'd caution that no demand is totally inelastic though. The classic example is people not reducing their insulin use if the price goes up, but in actual practice, people absolutely do just that.
  • HarHarVeryFunny 1y ago
    A huge percentage (35%-65% depending on what source you believe) of American families are living paycheck to paycheck are are therefore extremely price sensitive. They are the ones buying cheap stuff in Walmart. Not everyone will be buying expensive hothouse tomatoes come winter. People who can no longer afford to buy imported produce will change their habits and just buy more unhealthy stuff that they can afford.
    • Loughla 1y ago
      Do we import much food from China? Real question. South America, yes. But China?
• deadbabe 1y ago
  Someone help me figure out: Shouldn’t anti-capitalists be cheering this on? Way less consumption and incentives for businesses.
  • linsomniac 1y ago
    What do you mean by "anti-capitalists"? Because today's climate in the US seems, even related to the tariffs, to be heavily weighted towards making those with deep pockets even deeper. The confusion in the markets, for example, have been a perfect opportunity for those properly placed to rake in a ton of money. Ditto with DOGE ending spending on a lot of projects, moving it commercial providers.
  • Zamaamiro 1y ago
    Weird gotcha attempt. Who are you even speaking to? Are these "anti-capitalists" in the room with us right now?
  • MSFT_Edging 1y ago
    Outside of the US? Yes, I've seen some South American leftists saying "good, comeuppance". But overall? No, extreme shortages will mean people won't be able to receive essential goods. If they're sick, they could die. If their housing is precarious, extra costs of necessities could push them to homelessness. If they've been looking for a job to pay for necessities, good luck because businesses will be closing left and right and everyone will be looking for a job. This combined with moves to strengthen police aggression and protect police who fall on the wrong side of the law means any protest against these moves will be met with greater violence. We were already seeing people being blinded or killed by riot police during BLM protests. Imagine what kind of violence will be used against protestors who don't have anything to lose. They'll have lost their jobs, and with it their healthcare. They won't be able to afford housing, food, household objects, entertainment, etc. People in the US don't protest because we don't have social safety nets to fall back on. Now protestors wont have to worry about falling any deeper. So no, being anti-capitalist doesn't mean being pro a hyper-capitalist sabotaging the system people rely on to survive without any meaningful plan to fix or replace it. This is just chaos.
  • AngryData 1y ago
• MaoSYJ 1y ago
  this opens a interesting scenario where drug cartels may be the answer to a logistic problem since they already have the infraestructure for drugs. Could they diversify and smuggle tech products given their volume/weight ratio?
  • AlotOfReading 1y ago
    Organized crime has a long history of involvement with smuggling other kinds of products. It's common to smuggle electronics to countries with high import taxes (e.g. Brazil) and cartels have been involved with high value produce imports like luxury goods and avocados for years.
  • buyucu 1y ago
    smuggling makes sense for products light in size and value but large in value. it does not make sense for toilet paper.
    • anigbrowl 1y ago
      >>tech products >toilet paper ???
  • Aaronstotle 1y ago
    Almost funny to imagine the world where cartels will smuggle large quantities of Switch 2's to sell to Americans.
  • chasd00 1y ago
    i don't see why not, they sure as hell do it with avocados.
• ribcage 1y ago
  [dead]
• dotcoma 1y ago
  MAGA? How about SUITPA? Stock up in toilet paper again.
  • strken 1y ago
    I'd be surprised if the US had enduring toilet paper shortages, given that its domestic supply is quite good.
• ck2 1y ago
  Can you imagine empty shelves all summer in America like it's soviet union? Definitely going to happen because it will take months for shipping to return, just like the pandemic supply-chain disruptions. And maybe the tariffs stay while manufacturing decides to wait FOUR YEARS instead of changing anything.
  • netsharc 1y ago
    Soon: the White House team's going to go to grocery stores stocking up their shelves before Trump visits, Potemkin-village-style... Makes me think of the anecdote of Yeltsin entering a random grocery store, seeing their shelves full, and being shocked (the stop wasn't scheduled, and he assumed the US would've created a Potemkin grocery store): https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/13/how-a-russians-grocery-store-trip-in-1989-exposed-the-lie-of-socialism/ https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/13/how-a-russians-grocery-... Wikipedia: > Following the grocery store visit, Yeltsin and his entourage flew to Miami, their final location before returning to the Soviet Union. During the flight, Yeltsin was in a state of shock regarding the grocery store and remained speechless for a long time. According to Sukhanov, it was during the flight that "the last vestige of Bolshevism collapsed inside" Yeltsin. Following his silence, Yeltsin asked aloud, "What have they done to our people?", questioning the Soviet Union's struggles with food. In a later biography, Yeltsin commented regarding his grocery store visit, >> When I saw those shelves crammed with hundreds, thousands of cans, cartons and goods of every possible sort, for the first time I felt quite frankly sick with despair for the Soviet people. That such a potentially super-rich country as ours has been brought to a state of such poverty! It is terrible to think of it. Heh, perhaps we should compare it to that fucking "useful" idiot Tucker Carlson going to a Russian grocery store... If the shelves are empty in September, can someone recreate these photos, but with empty shelves: https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/Boris-Yeltsin-Clear-Lake-grocery-opera-14292897.php https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/Bori... (assuming the press is still free at that point, and there's no risk of being sent to the gulag...).
  • fundad 1y ago
    It’s not hard to imagine since we’ve had almost 2 years of warnings that the GOP would do this. Of course those warnings were dismissed as hysterical by people who apparently wanted this economic crisis.
• Mr_Eri_Atlov 1y ago
  7 weeks until this Wile E. Coyote nation realizes there's no ground beneath our feet and it's a long way down.
  • timewizard 1y ago
    It's been a long time coming. Sentiments like this in the article highlight why: > “Nobody wins,” he said. “China is America’s factory.” China is a sovereign country on the other side of the world. Making the entirety of your supply chain dependent on it is madness. And while the article strains to talk about "blue and purple shirts" you should probably be more concerned about where the pharmaceuticals are made. This article is writing from the perspective of those who are set to lose money on this horrible system of commerce. From my perspective they failed to read the writing on the wall and ran the system into the ground because it was the only way for them to keep their profit margins juiced. > “We’re not talking about higher prices and companies figuring out ways to pass that on,” Santos said. “We’re talking about actual disruption to the supply chain.” They say this as if it could only be a bad thing. What happened to the spirit of innovation and commerce in this country?
    • anigbrowl 1y ago
      Look back at COVID and notice how much innovative and commercial energy went into market-cornering and grift. Chaotic environments like those created by the recent tariff announcements are great for those who want to make a quick buck at others' expense, not so good for those who want to innovate/invest for the long term.
      • timewizard 1y ago
        That's a terrible comparison as much of COVID public policy called for a shut down of the economy, offices, and even paid people to sit at home and not work for significant portions of the year. There were also other perverse incentives in place to further this damage. Our current situation is entirely different and must be viewed using more appropriate comparisons.
    • 1y ago
• Someone 1y ago
  I’m surprised that 7 weeks of inventory is mentioned as being alarming. https://retalon.com/blog/inventory-turnover-ratio https://retalon.com/blog/inventory-turnover-ratio says “The average inventory turnover across retail is around 9x” That means they have about 6 weeks of inventory. Of course, it varies by industry, but for many, that shouldn’t be alarming. What do I misunderstand?
  • dimal 1y ago
    In seven weeks, there may be no way to restock. Six weeks inventory probably seems fine when there’s a constant inflow.
    • Loughla 1y ago
      I'm kind of lost on why there will be no restock. The price increased, they didn't ban everything. What am I missing?
      • rtsil 1y ago
        Unpredictability. If you restock and the tariffs are eliminated or significantly reduced a couple of weeks/month later, that's a disaster. So the best attitude is to wait and see.
      • ImaCake 1y ago
        The price increased for sending stuff to the USA. It didn't for every other consumer market in the world.
      • dade_ 1y ago
        US ports are quiet and shortages are next, but with that will also come panic buying and hoarding. https://www.npr.org/2025/04/18/nx-s1-5367762/the-busiest-ports-in-north-america-are-set-to-take-a-hit-with-new-tariffs https://www.npr.org/2025/04/18/nx-s1-5367762/the-busiest-por...
      • anigbrowl 1y ago
        I'm not going to restock at 2.5 times the price and take the risk of being stuck with a warehouse full of unsaleable consumer goods that people have suddenly realized they can't afford.
• disqard 1y ago
  So, a toddler is shaking a snowglobe. This entire section is full of people (not everyone, but several) analyzing it carefully, as if it were a scientist handling a moon rock inside the nitrogen environment of a glovebox. I can't see anything productive emerging from this post-hoc theorizing.
  • ivape 1y ago
    We didn't even have more than one debate this election cycle going over economic policy. I was big Ron Paul fan on foreign relations, but whenever he went into economics you could see his views were just a little nuts. Practical fiscal conservatives were asleep at the wheel on this one. For those that went through Brexit, can you detail when the larger population realized it was stupid? That's the only pattern I can see the U.S matching at this point.
    • glitchcrab 1y ago
      I couldn't put an exact time frame on it, but it took several years before the pro-Brexit politicians ran out of 'it will get better soon' arguments and the (majority of the) populace realised that they'd been had.
      • thechao 1y ago
        The MAGA ideologues can stay cultists longer than we can stay solvent? I'm in Texas, and I've got a neighbor, down the road, who was in custom home construction; he's out of business now. Why? He can't import lumber, reliably; he used to hire "under the table", and he bought small steel supplies in bulk from Alibaba. So... pretty much his entire business model is kaput. He keeps telling me that, any day now, Trump's 11D chess moves are going to make him (my neighbor) solvent again. He just sold his (white) truck, and is selling his house. Still flying his Trump flag, though.
        • reactordev 1y ago
          11D, got to wait for the 12D move to fix everything. /s
• alkonaut 1y ago
  The canary should be when the administration starts suggesting any economic indicators for the rest of the year are really due to the last administration and have nothing to do with this administration.
  • nitwit005 1y ago
    The canary is already dead then, as they've blamed the stock market on Biden several times now.
  • bobbylarrybobby 1y ago
    Already happening. https://apnews.com/article/trump-economy-tariffs-gdp-7494825851dcef94ec81475124f9326f https://apnews.com/article/trump-economy-tariffs-gdp-7494825... “ Trump was quick to blame his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, for any setbacks while telling his Cabinet that his tariffs meant China was “having tremendous difficulty because their factories are not doing business,” adding that the U.S. did not really need imports from the world’s dominant manufacturer. ” He also posted on Truth Social today, blaming Biden for the economy.
    • voytec 1y ago
      > Trump was quick to blame his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden At this point only QAnon/MAGA crowd and possibly Trump himself believes this shit. The rest of the world sees Trump for who he is.
  • QuantumGood 1y ago
    Truth Social post blamed Biden for the economy today. That's been a consistent drumbeat.
  • Cipater 1y ago
    He hasn't just done that that, he is saying that NEXT quarter is also Biden's fault.
• zoklet-enjoyer 1y ago
  Why is the president allowed to impose tariffs? Congress should have a say in it.
  • atrus 1y ago
    The president can do whatever they want as long as congress doesn't stop them. And congress...isn't stopping them. Not many lines here to read between.
    • Loughla 1y ago
      Exactly. The system of checks and balances, like most things apparently, only works if the people doing the things make it work. And they're refusing to do that. Our Congress is complicit in this mess.
    • trustinmenowpls 1y ago
      That's not even close to true, why has hn turned into reddit? Congress gave the president the power to impose tariffs about 50 years ago because it was too difficult for them to do it themselves without a bunch of horse trading and politics. Congress could in theory pass a new bill taking the power back but they would need a 2/3 majority to overcome Trump's inevitable veto, there simply aren't that many congress people who disagree with Trumps plan to get that to happen.
      • Loughla 1y ago
        Congress can stop the president. In your words they were the one to give that power to him originally. If they cared, they could stop him. OP's point still stands, I think.
      • heartbreak 1y ago
        Just FYI you’re agreeing with OP despite accusing them of lying and writing like a Reddit comment.
        • 1y ago
• EasyMark 1y ago
  So we're recreating the covid supply chain crisis on purpose so Trump can try and build an island, fortress America? Seems like a great idea put forth by great people.
• conductr 1y ago
  This all feels very familiar, I stocked up on toilet paper this past weekend just in case.
• solid_fuel 1y ago
  > The U.S.-China trade war fallout has begun. The Port of Los Angeles anticipates plummeting cargo traffic until a deal on tariffs is reached, but the Trump administration has not indicated whether negotiations are happening. Time is running out, a JPMorgan chief market strategist said. As is so often the case, Fortune is burying the lede here and making the situation look better than it is. The administration _has_ indicated that negotiations are happening, but China has denied that any such negotiations have occurred [0]. Given the trump administration's horrendous track record of blatant lies, there is no reason to believe them. In the best case, there are quiet negotiations going on, but there's a real chance here that trump is fully losing his mind, his mental state has been on the decline for years and the things he says are becoming more incoherent by the week. I am more inclined to believe that there are effectively no ongoing negotiations, and our trade policy is being determined largely by whoever gets the last word in with trump before he tweets something idiotic. This is an unsustainable situation. If you live in the US, now is an excellent time to contact your senators and representatives and demand some accountability. [0] https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/business/money-report/china-insists-no-tariff-talks-underway-with-trump-and-xi-or-top-aides-despite-u-s-claims/3732264/ https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/business/money-report/china-...
  • Loughla 1y ago
    Trump is making decisions how Trump has always made decisions; by agreeing with whoever kisses his ass the best and most often >If you live in the US, now is an excellent time to contact your senators and representatives and demand some accountability. They. Are. Complicit. At this point, any senator at all is complicit in this nonsense. They hold the checks and balances on the executive wing. They're not even trying to use them, at best, and actively subverting them, in all truth. It should be very telling that a VERY long term congressman like Dick Durbin is not seeking re-election. That's a bad sign.
• SkyMarshal 1y ago
  De-coupling from an authoritarian adversary is a worthwhile objective, but there are more competent ways of doing that. Back in Trump's first term he put up some targeted tariffs. They were reasonable, effective, non-destructive to the economy, and Biden actually kept them. Good trade policy often become bipartisan. There's a way to repeat that success. To effectively incentivize supply chain re-shoring, without destroying the economy and stock market, and being so effective and smart that the next administration keeps the policy, even a Dem admin. Which is: 1. increase tariffs gradually, stepwise, over the first two years +/- of his admin. Also get the math right, not 4x too high. 2. tariffs only on China and other adversaries, not our democratic friends and allies. China is the main economic problem anyway, not EU, Canada, Mexico, Japan, etc. 3. use other tools in addition to tariffs like tax policy for manufacturers (tax credits, accounting changes around equipment amortization, etc). Don't be that guy with only a hammer for whom everything is a nail, diversify, use all the tools available. A graduated, predictable, multi-pronged approach confers the policy stability and predictability companies need to forecast, plan, invest, and hire. That makes it more likely the next administration will continue the tariff policy, even a Dem admin. But Trump and Navarro's ham-fisted approach that tanks the stock market and causes shortages and inflation is not going to last. Companies won't invest and hire under those circumstances. It will implode, potentially discrediting the entire concept in the public's view, making it more difficult to implement an actually effective and sensible policy instead.
  • kccqzy 1y ago
    Exactly. If this administration were serious about hurting China and re-shoring manufacturing, there are ways to do that correctly so as to cause factories in China to idle, cause capital and technology in China to flow to third countries on which the U.S. imposes no tariffs, cause unemployment in China to rise, and ultimately cause the weakening of China's industrial might. The current administration did nothing like that.
• apricot 1y ago
  If you elect a clown _twice_, how can you not expect a huge circus?
• AndriyKunitsyn 1y ago
  With absurd tariffs like Trump's, it would be cheaper to re-export goods through a third country. Why haven't American retailers employed this?
  • disqard 1y ago
    This has been a thing since (at least) 2019, as this article shows: https://redarrowlogistics.com/international/dodging-tariffs-with-transshipping/ https://redarrowlogistics.com/international/dodging-tariffs-... Excerpt: > Put simply, transshipping is when a country ships product through a third country so that the product will look like it’s coming from the third country, thereby avoiding duties or tariffs. For example, one supplier, Settle Logistics, goes through Malaysia: a 4600 miles diversion compared with sending a container from China straight to the US. > This is much more expensive: shipping via Malaysia costs $3,000 to $4,000 more per shipping container, at least $2,000 more than shipping direct. Those costs are still worth it in order to avoid tariffs.
    • magicalhippo 1y ago
      Simply making the goods pass through a third country does not change the origin of the goods, and it's the origin which determines the tariff. So, as the article mentioned, the goods has to be significantly transformed in the third country in order for the goods to have its origin changed. Otherwise you're committing fraud and customs can punish you if they figure it out. Thus doing this the legal way would indeed involve more than the ship making a simple detour.
• twodave 1y ago
  It feels like we are seeing the beginnings of somewhat permanent deglobalization. What happens if the US decides they just want to trade with South America, Canada and Western Europe and stops doing business with the rest (including pulling their navy out of all the places they currently patrol, which I think is maybe the most dramatic thing that could happen)?
  • spartanatreyu 1y ago
    I don't think we're seeing deglobalization so much as strategic uncoupling from current and potential future autocrats. So, instead of relying solely on the best producer of each thing, economies want to also make sure they spend a little bit more to also get products from the second and third best producers to keep them producing just in case the first producer does something like (for lack of a better phase) throwing a firebomb in an apartment to kill a spider. They then treat the extra cost of products as a risk premium so the risk is already priced in. Markets hate higher prices, but they hate uncertainty more.
• senectus1 1y ago
  given how people behaved with toilet paper during covid... I would expect that timeframe to reduce significantly faster than 7 weeks.
• rustcleaner 1y ago
  Oh s***it son, muh long-dated puts on retail and calls on gold & silver are gon' print y'all!
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• anon-3988 1y ago
  I think the biggest damage from all this kerfuffle is this: why would anyone wants to invest the US anymore? The US have a personality disorder that swings every 4 years.
  • throwaway984393 1y ago
    [dead]
• slowmovintarget 1y ago
  > “Nobody wins,” he said. “China is America’s factory.” This is the real problem.
• tqi 1y ago
  If one were to assume there will be shortages in the near term (similar to early COVID), what staple items should one stock up on?
• nurettin 1y ago
  I'm long all manners of inflation. Spreads, indexes, everything. Should be enough to retire.