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This could get really ugly when the shelves start going empty. This may make the toilet paper incident seem quaint in comparison.

thehoff 2y ago
FTA: Maybe not empty but less choice and alternatives not necessarily what you're looking for. “I don’t see a complete emptiness on store shelves or online when we’re buying. But if you’re out looking for a blue shirt, you might find 11 purple ones and one blue in a size that’s not yours. So we’ll start seeing less choice on those shelves simply because we’re not getting the variety of goods coming in here based on the additional costs in place. And for that one blue shirt that’s still left, you’ll see a price hike,” Seroka said.
- taylodl 2y ago
  Markets don't work that way. Supply is tuned to demand. When the supply is artificially constrained while the demand remains constant, it further strains already limited supplies, leading to empty shelves and rising prices. This is a fundamental principle of market economics. It's important to understand how these dynamics operate to grasp the broader implications of reduced imports from China.
  - pixl97 2y ago
    In addition tik-tok/insta are having post after post warning people that the shelves are going to be empty which tends to feedback into itself. If you were going to buy 1 of X normally if you think X may be out for sometime you may end up buying 2-4 of X which will run the shelves out very quickly when 10-15% of purchasers do that unexpectedly. Other people see the shelves emptying and buy more too. Going to be messy. All I have to say is imagine if Biden did this, what the news would be saying.
    - philipallstar 2y ago
      I'd imagine they'd be saying, "Why haven't we seen Biden in over 100 days?"
    - ceejayoz 2y ago
      > All I have to say is imagine if Biden did this, what the news would be saying. Give it a few years. They'll say he did it. "Why do you think Barack Obama wasn't in the Oval Office on 9/11?" "That, I don't know. Would like to get to the bottom of that." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPfRGJRMbN8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPfRGJRMbN8
    - slashdev 2y ago
      > All I have to say is imagine if Biden did this, what the news would be saying. Surely you don’t mean to imply the media treated Biden less favorably than Trump?
      - Retric 2y ago
        Aggregate media bias across TV/Radio/Newspapers is interesting because both the direction and scale matters. Of course bias is only part of the story, do an objectively terrible job and you get more negative stories overall. As a concrete example a great deal of left leaning media was very critical of Biden running for reelection and especially waiting that long to pull out. You almost never see that kind of thing from right leaning media outlets. So, yes overall media bias favors Trump not because more outlets favor him but because the ones that do heavily favor him. Far left media is simply a more niche market than far right media. Mother Jones for example is well known but only pulls in ~16 million$ / year and even they where critical of Biden.
        newfriend 1y ago
        NYT, WaPo, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS are not niche. They all ran cover for Biden until the debate made it too obvious. They were not "very critical". They are, however, extremely critical of anything Trump does.
        achandlerwhite 1y ago
        I wouldn’t say extremely critical of Trump. He brings half of it on himself. Simply reporting what he says and does that makes him look incompetent is not being particularly critical.
        slashdev 1y ago
        The media has been extremely critical of Trump. Sometimes deserved, sometimes not. But impossible to deny the bias.
    - guntars 2y ago
      Ah, yes, the difference between taking two slices at a pizza party because you fear it might run out vs taking none because you fear it might run out.
    - ryandrake 2y ago
      > If you were going to buy 1 of X normally if you think X may be out for sometime you may end up buying 2-4 of X which will run the shelves out very quickly when 10-15% of purchasers do that unexpectedly. There are enough people who buy 0 of X normally, but if they think there might be stockouts, will visit every store in their area and buy 100 of X so they can scalp them and make a buck off their neighbors.
  - everforward 2y ago
    I think the above quote is accounting for both constrained supply and reduced demand from rising prices. Vendors consolidate their product lines to remove redundant (ish) offerings due to reduced demand and the new difficulties in managing supply chains. I.e. a shirt may only come in 3 colors instead of 10, and it may be harder to get the popular color because vendors are less likely to keep a large stock in warehouses. It doesn't violate market dynamics that I can see, though I'm far from an expert.
  - skybrian 2y ago
    One possible complication is that there’s quite a lot of waste that’s tolerated in pursuit of fashion and variety. (For example, Ross Dress For Less specializes in liquidating excess inventory.) So I wonder how that plays out? My guess is that retailers take fewer risks when ordering, sticking with products that they know they can sell, even if prices are higher. But they will still guess wrong sometimes.
  - treis 2y ago
    There's a lot of levers and people to squeeze along the way: Currency Manipulation to relatively increase Chinese manufacturing income Relocating manufacturing based on tariffs Retail margin US based design & engineering of products Advertising and other marketing activities Depending on the product some will be passed onto consumers. But for something like Nike's it's probably more like fewer shoe designers, Footlockers, less advertising, smaller contracts to athletes, more manufacturing in non-China countries, and so on. Everyone is going to take a bit of a bit and it's probably not going to be super noticable to any one part. No reason to expect empty shelves. Higher prices for stuff that can't be moved out of China. Sure. But it's a tariff, not an embargo.
    - daveguy 2y ago
      Currency manipulation - No. Inflation concern. Relocation of mfg - years long process won't help the shelves or the prices. Retail margin - yeah... retail will balance price hikes to avoid hitting profits with not pricing too high to further reduce demand. This is just one of the reasons prices will go up. It will reduce the demand to less efficient and profitable levels, but won't increase the supply. Shelves will be sparsely filled with more expensive items. US based engineering and design -- analogous to mfg. Not a near term solution. Advertising -- it doesn't matter how much you tell people to go buy shit if they don't have money and/or the prices are too high. Why are you still apologizing for Trump's absolutely incompetent policies?
- XorNot 2y ago
  It takes exactly 1 "bare shelves" post on social media to kick off panic buying which cascades. In fact it doesn't take much of a change in regular buying habits to cause that it it's all aligned in the same direction. i.e. a chunk of the toilet paper "shortage" can just be every customer suddenly buying one more pack that day "just to be on the safe side". Your local supermarket isn't expecting that, so the shelves still clear out that day - then the last person snaps a pic for social media....
  - WillAdams 2y ago
    Yeah, my Great Aunt and her friends would coordinate their purchase of sugar for making preserves each year w/ the local grocer --- while each of them could have bought all they needed at once, his stocking couldn't accommodate that, so everyone would let him know when they would start, and stop, buying a 5 lb. bag each week for each year's preserves.
  - rc5150 2y ago
    It's that one person on the highway driving just a little too fast and a little too close to the person in front of them, then they tap on their brakes and it starts the chain reaction of 3 hours of bumper to bumper rush hour traffic.
- croes 2y ago
  So I look for shirts and only find pants. Not an empty shelf in the literal way but empty on my demand
  - lazide 2y ago
    Which will cause a significant revenue issue for the retailer. And depending on how much you’ve thought ahead, a significant supply chain issue for you. Notably, this is really going to screw everyone using JIT supply chains.
- Workaccount2 2y ago
  This guy is not pricing in panic and irrational behavior. People do the dumbest shit when supplies start getting low and the news is non-stop talking about shortages.
- cameldrv 2y ago
  Honestly I doubt that shelves will be empty. Retailers are ordering less stuff from China because they’re predicting that demand will go down when the price is higher. If retailers were marking stuff up roughly 100% and take the same markup (in absolute terms), everything from China will go up about 70%, and people will simply not be able to afford to buy as much stuff.
  - minitoar 2y ago
    No. The price insensitive shoppers will buy everything and the shelves will be empty.
SwamyM 2y ago
Genuine question but how likely is that to happen? The media doesn't seem to be doing a good job articulating what the (likely) real world impact is going to be. I keep hearing how other countries are negotiating but when you look into the details, there is nothing of substance actually happening.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
  Well every time they speculate people pounce on them for being wrong, lying, fake news, etc. We will see!
- duxup 2y ago
  I don’t think the media really knows what will happen. Trump randomly decides to lift tariffs and any prediction is off.
  - brookst 2y ago
    The specifics of predictions may change, but the supply chain shock doesn’t just evaporate. Trump could transform into a 100% rational, economically wise leader today and the impacts of the past few months’ insanity would still be felt for years. Those bullets are already in flight and can’t be recalled.
  - rtkwe 2y ago
    Even if the future of the tariffs themselves were at all predictable many outlets are allergic to any connecting of dots. I saw an article from The Hill just yesterday that took the line that the RTO mandate for federal workers was an actual attempt to "improve productivity" at face value without an ounce of push back in an article about how poorly the RTO is going. The big outlets are terrified to get on this admin's bad side because their current business wants to do a lot of mergers which have to be approved and the administration can tie those up for years on a whim so they're already lying down.
  - aaronbaugher 2y ago
    Or he doesn't lower them randomly, but in response to other countries lowering their own tariffs and other protectionist measures against the US, resulting in the more "balanced" trade which, whether we agree with it or not, has been the goal all along. But yes, whatever the reason, the situation could change too quickly for safe predictions. In 2020, the US economy had recovered from the massive disruptions of the Covid lockdowns by Q4. There were shortages of toilet paper and eggs for a while, then there were surpluses and sales for a while, and then it smoothed out.
vonneumannstan 2y ago
Is there a sense of what products are actually at risk of not being in stock?
- gonzo41 2y ago
  Anything made of cheap plastic, like all kids toys and lower end electronics. Anything you wouldn't really pay double for.
- danans 2y ago
  Anything low cost that requires a significant amount of manual labor to assemble. So clothes, toys, accessories, etc.
  - tim333 2y ago
    There's going to be a lot of that turning up from other cheap countries like Vietnam, either made there of just stuff from China rebranded. I can see more problems with high tech stuff from China like the rare earths.
    - bluGill 2y ago
      Unfortunately the tariffs hit cheap places like Vietnam just as much or more. (while Vietnam is not perfect I still have hope that supporting them will reform them for the better. Until Xi took power in China I had the same hope for them though. Only time will tell)
- TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
  A lot of packaging is sourced from China. Things that wouldn't otherwise be a problem will become a problem. Potentially that includes bottles, tins, plastic food packaging, niche carboard boxes. Imports from China are ~40% of all US imports. Even a 10% drop would be difficult, and at current levels it's going to be more than that.
  - woobar 2y ago
pkulak 2y ago
Trump will back down and lift the teriffs the second there are widespread consequences. He’ll give some excuse, and his supporters will eat it up. That or he’ll make so many deals with CEOs for political support and financial contributions that we won’t even notice that a few smaller companies went out of business or pulled out of the US.
- Anon84 2y ago
  It may not matter. The ships that were supposed to be here, aren't. Even if the tariffs were lifted today, it would still take weeks for new orders to be shipped and delivered to the US. We're very much in the FO part of FAFO
  - LiquidSky 2y ago
    Unfortunately, that has only fueled this madness. Because there is a lead time for shipments, things didn't instantly go bad when the tariffs were announced, so many people mistakenly seem to believe there's no problem. A lot of people apparently need instant feedback to understand cause and effect.
    - kergonath 2y ago
      Which is quite surprising, because we went through several stress tests for globalised logistics in recent years with Covid, the Red Sea situation, and the Ukraine invasion. You’d think people would remember what happened 3 years ago.
      - sjsdaiuasgdia 2y ago
        Read any of the "let's talk to a panel of people who voted for Trump and see how they feel now" articles that NYT, etc put out and you might be shocked at how short memories can be, and how little critical thinking many people are able to apply to the information available to them.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
cryptonym 2y ago
Trade war isn't real until shelves are empty and black market is blooming, like a regular war.
jmyeet 2y ago
The "empty shelves" discourse is alarmist and honestly kind of annoying. Almost all of the food on the shelves is locally produced or, in the very least, not produced in China. Some foods may disappear or become more expensive but there'll really be no disruption in food supply. This will however affect markets dominated by Chinese goods, particularly clothing. Even here the effects will be somewhat mitigated by existing strategies to avoid China tariffs eg selling through Vietnam. Certain businesses will be hit hard. And that's really the biggest problem: cascading effects leading to an inevitable recession. Already, truckers who ship goods from ports are sitting around idle. We've cut tens of thousands from the government. More layoffs are to come.
- jghn 2y ago
  I both agree and have been worried that this is overly reductive. As far as I can tell, literally nothing that I buy regularly is directly sourced from China. Or anywhere other than the US & neighboring countries. The vast majority of my groceries are locally sourced. And the vast majority of the rest come from expected regions, for instance San Marzano tomatoes from Italy. I do not regularly buy clothes, children's supplies, electronics, etc. Sure, I'll buy them once in a while but not with any regularity. My understanding is that the classic paper products famous from COVID shortages are made in the US. So with that in mind what you say is 100% true, at least for me. But I'm not so sure. Who makes the containers that my local milk is put into? Who makes the cans that my canned goods are using? What meta-products are being consumed by the local industries, such as the ones making my TP? I have a feeling the answer is scarier than it'd seem on the surface. But I don't know.
  - Teever 2y ago
    Where do the farmers that grow your food get their fertilizer and fuel from? Or the electronics and hydraulics in their tractors?
    - jghn 2y ago
      That's exactly my point. In other words, the threat model people should be worrying about isn't "bare shelves due to no goods from China to stock them" but rather "bare shelves because the entities who make the goods to stock them are missing critical components". And that's much harder for someone to predict what impact it'll have. I imagine that my daily life is very skewed away from direct impact from a Chinese embargo relative to other US citizens. And even still, I'm pretty sure it's going to be a problem.
reaperducer 2y ago
This could get really ugly when the shelves start going empty. Retailers Fear Toy Shortages at Christmas as Tariffs Freeze Supply Chain: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/29/business/trump-tariffs-christmas-china.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/29/business/trump-tariffs-ch... In a Toy Association survey of 410 toy manufacturers with annual sales of less than $100 million, more than 60 percent said they had canceled orders, and around 50 percent said they would go out of business within weeks or months if the tariffs remained. … She had placed a large order of scooters to arrive for the summer. But the importer rerouted the shipment to Canada because it did not want to pay the tariff.
- rayiner 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - LiquidSky 2y ago
    No, we have to back off tariffs because they are a terrible idea.
    - ericmay 2y ago
      Tariffs are just a policy tool we can use. Every major economic power uses them to some extent, including the European Union. Trump’s tariffs I think are bad because he is “going after everyone” versus Biden’s approach which was to build a coalition of friendly nations and revamp supply chains to reduce dependency on China who is adamant about being a foe to the United States, European Union, and others. Tariffs are not a bad tool to leverage here against China, but the way this administration is going about it seems like a less prudent approach. To the OP’s point - I completely agree. If Americans can’t go a day without a flood of cheap, disposable junk (yes this is different than your iPhone or other advanced electronics), our civilization is going to face serious challenges on the global stage and further reductions in quality of life and access to resources. What so many seem to forget is that there actually isn’t enough to go around. And we have to enact policies and utilize military force to protect our nation(s). Ideally we can do this in a peaceful way that brings everyone up as much as possible but this is only going to occur so long as the great nations of the world see eye to eye on that. We can and should enlarge the pie. But it requires everyone agreeing to doing so. That consensus is failing. Many seem to think “China will just sell their stuff to the EU and the EU will get cheaper prices!” But that just places the EU in the same intolerable position the United States is finding itself. You must manufacture goods and provide services. You must have industries capable of creating products at all levels. Allowing too much of that manufacturing power to reside in one country, and one that does not like your liberal values, is beyond foolish. The fact that Americans can’t go a day without TikTok or cheap Temu junk, or stomach paying more for your iPhone and keeping it a little longer should be viewed as seriously and deathly concerning. And going without such things or paying more for them isn’t even in the conversation of national sacrifice or “hard times”. To add, it seems to me that “we don’t have the ability to build that here” when it comes to something like an iPhone is a serious problem. We have hollowed out our manufacturing capacity.
rs999gti 2y ago
> the toilet paper I guess these US manufacturers will need to step it up: Kimberly-Clark, Procter & Gamble, and Georgia-Pacific
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  The feedstock for toilet paper (wood pulp) comes from Canada. https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-tariffs-on-canadian-lumber-could-result-in-toilet-paper-shortages-in-the-us-200334726.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-tariffs-on-canadian-lumber...
  - potato3732842 2y ago
    Paper is one of the things one should be least worried about. We source chips from Canada because it's marginally cheaper to source it from there. It's not like the US doesn't have a ton of sources of wood pulp. Canada just has bigger cheaper sources (comparing like for like quality). We also burn a lot of "less than ideal for paper" chips for energy rather than feed them into a paper mill, also for marginal cost per result reasons. Wood chips suitable for paper pulp are also hugely elastic in the same way that recycled metal is. Huge volume is either directed into the supply chain or not based on marginal price. The people making every wood product are choosing what do with their waste based on chip prices and energy prices. Even your local tree service is choosing what to chip and where to dump based on economic conditions and balancing act between relative prices. If you wanna be worried about something be worried about stuff we don't make much of in the US. Super high volume commodity widgets made from metal, all manner of electronics, etc, basically the kind of stuff where our only domestic capacity is super high dollar stuff to serve defense and aerospace.
    - toomuchtodo 2y ago
      Please provide citations for these assertions.
      - everforward 2y ago
AtlasBarfed 2y ago
People seem to think, including very disturbingly our secretary of the Treasury, the companies maintain huge warehouses of back stock. That hasn't been the case since the mid-90s when the PC revolution started pushing out supply chain management software. If I recall correctly, Walmart was the innovator in this space in one of their key ways to gain economic advantage over other retailers was low back stock demand tracking On top of that the '90s was when free trade agreements came into Vogue and the supply lines and outsourcing of manufacturing cranked up into high gear. So as we saw with covid, any disruption to this a highly extended optimized supply chain results in massive disruption. I can't see how any massive new tariffs isn't going to essentially be a covid level or worse disruption to this entire supply chain
- antonvs 2y ago
  > That hasn't been the case since the mid-90s when the PC revolution started pushing out supply chain management software. I worked on PC software for optimizing warehouse inventory in the mid-1980s. The system was designed by an applied mathematician and used by large national companies. Customers made substantial savings - double digit percentages of inventory cost.
  - fuzzfactor 1y ago
    When you trim to the bone it's not entirely dissimilar to the kind of savings that can be achieved in other ways. In the 1970's, when Nixon launched his recession after an equivalent lead-up, I worked at the University for one semester in a work-study job. They only paid minimum wage, and these were easy jobs like library assistants where you were expected to be able to study about half the time. But you were working for the State just like all other State employees. You know, the maintenance people, the professors, highway patrol, capitol admin staff, etc. Career employees. Like everyone else, you had to wait two weeks after starting work before you would receive your first paycheck. About halfway through the semester it got so bad they decided to hold paychecks for two more weeks. :\ You mean everybody who worked for the State just didn't get anything for two weeks until it picked back up again? Yup. At the end of the semester I was made whole because my checks still kept coming in for a couple more weeks after I was no longer employed there. "Just like" the career employees who would be collecting for a couple extra weeks themselves decades later after they retire. Well, it was a recession, what do you want, prosperity? That ship sailed a long time ago :\ The source of prosperity done receded.
jp57 2y ago
HN should have a feature where you can tag a prediction to come back for review after some period of time.
- jdc0589 2y ago
  we need the reddit remindme bot
  - kergonath 2y ago
    No, we really don’t. We don’t need a bot bringing marginally positive value for a single person and shitting the bed, cluttering everything with stupid useless noise and bringing negative value for everyone else. "Be more like Reddit" is really not something HN should aspire to. If you like Reddit, it’s ok to be both there and here.
    - jdc0589 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - nebula8804 2y ago
        years of trash flooding reddit comments obviously. Hes got a good point. Not all additional information is good. In fact the majority of data is garbage. Its hard enough to sift through the existing mound and i've tried to scale back my contribution to the noise (its hard).
      - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
        It's pretty clear that reddit hurt him.
        kergonath 1y ago
        Not really, and I also use it, when I want the sort of things that I can find there. It’s just that most of the time I don’t. I am not really anti-Reddit, but I am very anti-noisy bots.
jillesvangurp 2y ago
Empty shelves are just one of the symptoms. The real pain will come from companies having to deal with increased taxes (that's what tariffs are) for Chinese components, decreased exports (counter tariffs, anti US sentiments), etc. and then their follow up to that would be using tools like layoffs, price increases, etc. Some of those companies might have to close doors and go bankrupt. If that happens a lot you get the ripple effect on banks via foreclosures of businesses and mortgages (like sixteen years ago). There are of course quite a few large US businesses being affected directly by this stuff. I imagine that they are not happy with this. And that level of unhappiness will translate into shifts in political donations. Which, I'm sure is something that will get more apparent as next year's mid term elections get closer. That's a stick that can be (and probably already is) wielded that might produce results soonish. At least, I imagine the CEOs of GM, Ford, Boeing, etc. might have a thing or two to say about seeing China disappear as a market where they can do business to sell stuff or to source key components that they require for their own products. China was not being subtle rejecting delivery of a couple of new Boeing planes. And reductions in container traffic from China (which are the life blood of the US economy) are of course a very visible thing. And since container deliveries are critical for supply chains of most manufacturing that actually still happens in the US, that could get ugly really quickly. Worst case all this triggers a recession. Those are rarely predicted accurately until after they've happened. But the signs aren't great and wall street is definitely nervous. A few stocks crashing because investors start panic selling could do the job. We're not there yet, but it got close a few weeks ago.
- roughly 2y ago
  > There are of course quite a few large US businesses being affected directly by this stuff. I imagine that they are not happy with this. And that level of unhappiness will translate into shifts in political donations. Which, I'm sure is something that will get more apparent as next year's mid term elections get closer. That's a stick that can be (and probably already is) wielded that might produce results soonish. I sincerely hope you’re right, but all initial evidence is the oligarchs kissing the ring, not pulling the strings. Maybe when it becomes obvious that they’re not getting anything for all that abasement they change tacks, but nothing in the Trump era has suggested to me that these folks have the tiger by anything but the tail.
dv_dt 2y ago
Retail shelves are a easy personally viewable measure, but a ramping logistics disruption & price increase on all sorts of processes we rely on daily may also be going on in parallel with more empty shelves. Parts for factories, cars, appliances, power stations etc...
aziaziazi 2y ago
The smart ones will head to the hardware store instead of rushing to the paper: bidet-washing-tube will makes you free of toilet paper for life. Cost: 10-30$ Installation: 20min with basic tools on your existing toilet. Usage: tons and tons of online tutorials because 1/3 of the world already use that daily. But you can also figure it out yourself easely, it’s way easier than managing node_modules on a shared project. Even cheaper alternative: a simple plastic bottle half-full and half bend. Many cheap labours in my city (Paris, fr) use one at work (cook, night cleaners, construction…). While the bourgeoisie fight for pooping clean during a world crisis, their Pakistani labor do they shit as usual. We should be inspired.
- RandomBacon 2y ago
  As someone who has used real bidets, I've tried bidet attachments - they suck. I'm going to remain with my traditional toilet until I move into my "forever home" at which point I will install bidets.
  - aziaziazi 2y ago
    If you can’t use one of above methods for reason, there’s some « seats attachment » to transform your toilet in a (cheap) Japanese style. Here’s a 79€ one [0] but there’s many alternative brands with less marketing bundled in the price. 0 https://www.helloboku.com/ https://www.helloboku.com/
  - projectazorian 2y ago
    You can get a Toto Washlet attachment for ~$300 (who knows what it costs now after tariffs) that as far as I can tell is almost exactly the same model used in Japan. Heated seat, remote control, dryer, etc.
  - tclancy 1y ago
    They’re great relative to not having the option. I panicked and bought two more in January for just what seems about to happen. Should have gotten three.
  - orthecreedence 1y ago
techpineapple 2y ago
I would imagine the reaction from the white house will be to attack businesses for failing to order product for political reasons, traitors trying to help China avoid paying Tarrifs. And I imagine this strategy will be more effective than one would first think, since it's nuts. I imagine it will change business behavior, maybe even to the point that business act against their own economic interests, the question is how much? The crazy thing is that will the Trump effect last long enough to negatively impact the next president or the Democratic congress assuming they win in 2026? The presidents numbers wouldn't suggest that it could go that long, but the world is upside down right now.
ethagnawl 2y ago
I made my first trip (of many) to the store to stock up on shelf-stable items this morning.
tomcar288 2y ago
let's not forget, "In 2024, China supplied approximately 13.4% of the total goods imported by the United States, with a total value of $438.9 billion. " ' And those are heavily concentrated in certain industries like basic electronics, toys, etc. in anycase, it'll be interesting to see how it plays out.
otterley 2y ago
The weird thing is that toilet paper isn’t even a necessity. It’s a convenience. One could do just as well with a damp washcloth. Sure, you have to wash it afterwards, but it’s not that bad. Or one could use a bidet, but I think most of these are imported from China. Oops.
kolanos 2y ago
It's a good thing the United States doesn't depend on China for toilet paper, then. > The United States primarily sources its toilet paper domestically, with about 90% being manufactured within the country.However, a significant portion of imports come from Canada and Mexico. In fact, the United States does not depend on China for any essential consumer goods from what I can find.
- Zamaamiro 1y ago
  What do you define as "essential consumer goods"? American parents would probably put car seats and strollers in that bucket. https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/28/business/strollers-car-seats-tariffs/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/28/business/strollers-car-seats-...
- rvba 1y ago
  What is the source of wood for that paper? Canada?
  - kolanos 1y ago
    > The top 10 softwood lumber producers in the US have a combined capacity of 24.1 billion board feet, representing 50% of the US industry, according to Forisk. > The U.S. imports a significant portion of its softwood lumber from Canada, with roughly 30% of its softwood lumber needs being met by Canadian exports.Specifically, in 2023, Canada exported 28.1 million cubic meters of softwood lumber to the U.S. This accounts for a large percentage of the total softwood lumber imported by the U.S., with Canada being the primary supplier. > The United States can potentially supply up to 95% of its own softwood lumber consumption through domestic production.While the U.S. is a net importer of lumber, its domestic industry has the capacity to meet most of its needs.
FuriouslyAdrift 2y ago
This assumes domestic production does not ramp up to meet demand. Yes, prices will increase (pushing down demand). I work for an org that does packaging (boxes, pallets, etc) for a whole bunch of manufacturing, ag, and retail firms (Tesla, Thyssenkrup, Target, etc.) and we are booming right now.
hahajk 1y ago
If it's famine you're worried about, I think we'll be ok as long as the govt doesn't try to set prices/mandate supply [1] (which isn't out of the question I suppose.) If it's war due to decreased economic interdependence, well yes that would be much worse. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_of_famines https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_of_famines
- 3vidence 1y ago
  Setting prices seems like it is just one executive order away...
fuzzfactor 1y ago
A Walmart superstore is stacked to the gills with products of all description. What makes lots of money is not exactly having so many different choices stocked, instead having a good proportion of items "fly off the shelf" can be the focus. The high-performance store will have numerous shelves completely clear every day, sometimes more than once per day, and they are perfectly geared to accommodate that when it happens without waiting until the more-organized nightly re-stocking. The store is huge, and if a big shelf stays clear for any length of time it's quite noticeable. But can still represent the tip of the iceberg if that also means that quite a big multiple of inventory is also absent from "behind the curtain" in the warehouses and upstream.

thehoff 2y ago

FTA: Maybe not empty but less choice and alternatives not necessarily what you're looking for. “I don’t see a complete emptiness on store shelves or online when we’re buying. But if you’re out looking for a blue shirt, you might find 11 purple ones and one blue in a size that’s not yours. So we’ll start seeing less choice on those shelves simply because we’re not getting the variety of goods coming in here based on the additional costs in place. And for that one blue shirt that’s still left, you’ll see a price hike,” Seroka said.

taylodl 2y ago
Markets don't work that way. Supply is tuned to demand. When the supply is artificially constrained while the demand remains constant, it further strains already limited supplies, leading to empty shelves and rising prices. This is a fundamental principle of market economics. It's important to understand how these dynamics operate to grasp the broader implications of reduced imports from China.
- pixl97 2y ago
  In addition tik-tok/insta are having post after post warning people that the shelves are going to be empty which tends to feedback into itself. If you were going to buy 1 of X normally if you think X may be out for sometime you may end up buying 2-4 of X which will run the shelves out very quickly when 10-15% of purchasers do that unexpectedly. Other people see the shelves emptying and buy more too. Going to be messy. All I have to say is imagine if Biden did this, what the news would be saying.
  - philipallstar 2y ago
    I'd imagine they'd be saying, "Why haven't we seen Biden in over 100 days?"
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    > All I have to say is imagine if Biden did this, what the news would be saying. Give it a few years. They'll say he did it. "Why do you think Barack Obama wasn't in the Oval Office on 9/11?" "That, I don't know. Would like to get to the bottom of that." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPfRGJRMbN8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPfRGJRMbN8
  - slashdev 2y ago
    > All I have to say is imagine if Biden did this, what the news would be saying. Surely you don’t mean to imply the media treated Biden less favorably than Trump?
    - Retric 2y ago
      Aggregate media bias across TV/Radio/Newspapers is interesting because both the direction and scale matters. Of course bias is only part of the story, do an objectively terrible job and you get more negative stories overall. As a concrete example a great deal of left leaning media was very critical of Biden running for reelection and especially waiting that long to pull out. You almost never see that kind of thing from right leaning media outlets. So, yes overall media bias favors Trump not because more outlets favor him but because the ones that do heavily favor him. Far left media is simply a more niche market than far right media. Mother Jones for example is well known but only pulls in ~16 million$ / year and even they where critical of Biden.
      - newfriend 1y ago
        NYT, WaPo, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS are not niche. They all ran cover for Biden until the debate made it too obvious. They were not "very critical". They are, however, extremely critical of anything Trump does.
        achandlerwhite 1y ago
        I wouldn’t say extremely critical of Trump. He brings half of it on himself. Simply reporting what he says and does that makes him look incompetent is not being particularly critical.
        slashdev 1y ago
        The media has been extremely critical of Trump. Sometimes deserved, sometimes not. But impossible to deny the bias.
  - guntars 2y ago
    Ah, yes, the difference between taking two slices at a pizza party because you fear it might run out vs taking none because you fear it might run out.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    > If you were going to buy 1 of X normally if you think X may be out for sometime you may end up buying 2-4 of X which will run the shelves out very quickly when 10-15% of purchasers do that unexpectedly. There are enough people who buy 0 of X normally, but if they think there might be stockouts, will visit every store in their area and buy 100 of X so they can scalp them and make a buck off their neighbors.
- everforward 2y ago
  I think the above quote is accounting for both constrained supply and reduced demand from rising prices. Vendors consolidate their product lines to remove redundant (ish) offerings due to reduced demand and the new difficulties in managing supply chains. I.e. a shirt may only come in 3 colors instead of 10, and it may be harder to get the popular color because vendors are less likely to keep a large stock in warehouses. It doesn't violate market dynamics that I can see, though I'm far from an expert.
- skybrian 2y ago
  One possible complication is that there’s quite a lot of waste that’s tolerated in pursuit of fashion and variety. (For example, Ross Dress For Less specializes in liquidating excess inventory.) So I wonder how that plays out? My guess is that retailers take fewer risks when ordering, sticking with products that they know they can sell, even if prices are higher. But they will still guess wrong sometimes.
- treis 2y ago
  There's a lot of levers and people to squeeze along the way: Currency Manipulation to relatively increase Chinese manufacturing income Relocating manufacturing based on tariffs Retail margin US based design & engineering of products Advertising and other marketing activities Depending on the product some will be passed onto consumers. But for something like Nike's it's probably more like fewer shoe designers, Footlockers, less advertising, smaller contracts to athletes, more manufacturing in non-China countries, and so on. Everyone is going to take a bit of a bit and it's probably not going to be super noticable to any one part. No reason to expect empty shelves. Higher prices for stuff that can't be moved out of China. Sure. But it's a tariff, not an embargo.
  - daveguy 2y ago
    Currency manipulation - No. Inflation concern. Relocation of mfg - years long process won't help the shelves or the prices. Retail margin - yeah... retail will balance price hikes to avoid hitting profits with not pricing too high to further reduce demand. This is just one of the reasons prices will go up. It will reduce the demand to less efficient and profitable levels, but won't increase the supply. Shelves will be sparsely filled with more expensive items. US based engineering and design -- analogous to mfg. Not a near term solution. Advertising -- it doesn't matter how much you tell people to go buy shit if they don't have money and/or the prices are too high. Why are you still apologizing for Trump's absolutely incompetent policies?
XorNot 2y ago
It takes exactly 1 "bare shelves" post on social media to kick off panic buying which cascades. In fact it doesn't take much of a change in regular buying habits to cause that it it's all aligned in the same direction. i.e. a chunk of the toilet paper "shortage" can just be every customer suddenly buying one more pack that day "just to be on the safe side". Your local supermarket isn't expecting that, so the shelves still clear out that day - then the last person snaps a pic for social media....
- WillAdams 2y ago
  Yeah, my Great Aunt and her friends would coordinate their purchase of sugar for making preserves each year w/ the local grocer --- while each of them could have bought all they needed at once, his stocking couldn't accommodate that, so everyone would let him know when they would start, and stop, buying a 5 lb. bag each week for each year's preserves.
- rc5150 2y ago
  It's that one person on the highway driving just a little too fast and a little too close to the person in front of them, then they tap on their brakes and it starts the chain reaction of 3 hours of bumper to bumper rush hour traffic.
croes 2y ago
So I look for shirts and only find pants. Not an empty shelf in the literal way but empty on my demand
- lazide 2y ago
  Which will cause a significant revenue issue for the retailer. And depending on how much you’ve thought ahead, a significant supply chain issue for you. Notably, this is really going to screw everyone using JIT supply chains.
Workaccount2 2y ago
This guy is not pricing in panic and irrational behavior. People do the dumbest shit when supplies start getting low and the news is non-stop talking about shortages.
cameldrv 2y ago
Honestly I doubt that shelves will be empty. Retailers are ordering less stuff from China because they’re predicting that demand will go down when the price is higher. If retailers were marking stuff up roughly 100% and take the same markup (in absolute terms), everything from China will go up about 70%, and people will simply not be able to afford to buy as much stuff.
- minitoar 2y ago
  No. The price insensitive shoppers will buy everything and the shelves will be empty.

SwamyM 2y ago

Genuine question but how likely is that to happen? The media doesn't seem to be doing a good job articulating what the (likely) real world impact is going to be. I keep hearing how other countries are negotiating but when you look into the details, there is nothing of substance actually happening.

2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
Well every time they speculate people pounce on them for being wrong, lying, fake news, etc. We will see!
duxup 2y ago
I don’t think the media really knows what will happen. Trump randomly decides to lift tariffs and any prediction is off.
- brookst 2y ago
  The specifics of predictions may change, but the supply chain shock doesn’t just evaporate. Trump could transform into a 100% rational, economically wise leader today and the impacts of the past few months’ insanity would still be felt for years. Those bullets are already in flight and can’t be recalled.
- rtkwe 2y ago
  Even if the future of the tariffs themselves were at all predictable many outlets are allergic to any connecting of dots. I saw an article from The Hill just yesterday that took the line that the RTO mandate for federal workers was an actual attempt to "improve productivity" at face value without an ounce of push back in an article about how poorly the RTO is going. The big outlets are terrified to get on this admin's bad side because their current business wants to do a lot of mergers which have to be approved and the administration can tie those up for years on a whim so they're already lying down.
- aaronbaugher 2y ago
  Or he doesn't lower them randomly, but in response to other countries lowering their own tariffs and other protectionist measures against the US, resulting in the more "balanced" trade which, whether we agree with it or not, has been the goal all along. But yes, whatever the reason, the situation could change too quickly for safe predictions. In 2020, the US economy had recovered from the massive disruptions of the Covid lockdowns by Q4. There were shortages of toilet paper and eggs for a while, then there were surpluses and sales for a while, and then it smoothed out.

vonneumannstan 2y ago

Is there a sense of what products are actually at risk of not being in stock?

gonzo41 2y ago
Anything made of cheap plastic, like all kids toys and lower end electronics. Anything you wouldn't really pay double for.
danans 2y ago
Anything low cost that requires a significant amount of manual labor to assemble. So clothes, toys, accessories, etc.
- tim333 2y ago
  There's going to be a lot of that turning up from other cheap countries like Vietnam, either made there of just stuff from China rebranded. I can see more problems with high tech stuff from China like the rare earths.
  - bluGill 2y ago
    Unfortunately the tariffs hit cheap places like Vietnam just as much or more. (while Vietnam is not perfect I still have hope that supporting them will reform them for the better. Until Xi took power in China I had the same hope for them though. Only time will tell)
TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
A lot of packaging is sourced from China. Things that wouldn't otherwise be a problem will become a problem. Potentially that includes bottles, tins, plastic food packaging, niche carboard boxes. Imports from China are ~40% of all US imports. Even a 10% drop would be difficult, and at current levels it's going to be more than that.
- woobar 2y ago

pkulak 2y ago

Trump will back down and lift the teriffs the second there are widespread consequences. He’ll give some excuse, and his supporters will eat it up. That or he’ll make so many deals with CEOs for political support and financial contributions that we won’t even notice that a few smaller companies went out of business or pulled out of the US.

Anon84 2y ago
It may not matter. The ships that were supposed to be here, aren't. Even if the tariffs were lifted today, it would still take weeks for new orders to be shipped and delivered to the US. We're very much in the FO part of FAFO
- LiquidSky 2y ago
  Unfortunately, that has only fueled this madness. Because there is a lead time for shipments, things didn't instantly go bad when the tariffs were announced, so many people mistakenly seem to believe there's no problem. A lot of people apparently need instant feedback to understand cause and effect.
  - kergonath 2y ago
    Which is quite surprising, because we went through several stress tests for globalised logistics in recent years with Covid, the Red Sea situation, and the Ukraine invasion. You’d think people would remember what happened 3 years ago.
    - sjsdaiuasgdia 2y ago
      Read any of the "let's talk to a panel of people who voted for Trump and see how they feel now" articles that NYT, etc put out and you might be shocked at how short memories can be, and how little critical thinking many people are able to apply to the information available to them.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

cryptonym 2y ago

Trade war isn't real until shelves are empty and black market is blooming, like a regular war.

jmyeet 2y ago

The "empty shelves" discourse is alarmist and honestly kind of annoying. Almost all of the food on the shelves is locally produced or, in the very least, not produced in China. Some foods may disappear or become more expensive but there'll really be no disruption in food supply. This will however affect markets dominated by Chinese goods, particularly clothing. Even here the effects will be somewhat mitigated by existing strategies to avoid China tariffs eg selling through Vietnam. Certain businesses will be hit hard. And that's really the biggest problem: cascading effects leading to an inevitable recession. Already, truckers who ship goods from ports are sitting around idle. We've cut tens of thousands from the government. More layoffs are to come.

jghn 2y ago
I both agree and have been worried that this is overly reductive. As far as I can tell, literally nothing that I buy regularly is directly sourced from China. Or anywhere other than the US & neighboring countries. The vast majority of my groceries are locally sourced. And the vast majority of the rest come from expected regions, for instance San Marzano tomatoes from Italy. I do not regularly buy clothes, children's supplies, electronics, etc. Sure, I'll buy them once in a while but not with any regularity. My understanding is that the classic paper products famous from COVID shortages are made in the US. So with that in mind what you say is 100% true, at least for me. But I'm not so sure. Who makes the containers that my local milk is put into? Who makes the cans that my canned goods are using? What meta-products are being consumed by the local industries, such as the ones making my TP? I have a feeling the answer is scarier than it'd seem on the surface. But I don't know.
- Teever 2y ago
  Where do the farmers that grow your food get their fertilizer and fuel from? Or the electronics and hydraulics in their tractors?
  - jghn 2y ago
    That's exactly my point. In other words, the threat model people should be worrying about isn't "bare shelves due to no goods from China to stock them" but rather "bare shelves because the entities who make the goods to stock them are missing critical components". And that's much harder for someone to predict what impact it'll have. I imagine that my daily life is very skewed away from direct impact from a Chinese embargo relative to other US citizens. And even still, I'm pretty sure it's going to be a problem.

reaperducer 2y ago

This could get really ugly when the shelves start going empty. Retailers Fear Toy Shortages at Christmas as Tariffs Freeze Supply Chain: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/29/business/trump-tariffs-christmas-china.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/29/business/trump-tariffs-ch... In a Toy Association survey of 410 toy manufacturers with annual sales of less than $100 million, more than 60 percent said they had canceled orders, and around 50 percent said they would go out of business within weeks or months if the tariffs remained. … She had placed a large order of scooters to arrive for the summer. But the importer rerouted the shipment to Canada because it did not want to pay the tariff.

rayiner 2y ago
[flagged]
- LiquidSky 2y ago
  No, we have to back off tariffs because they are a terrible idea.
  - ericmay 2y ago
    Tariffs are just a policy tool we can use. Every major economic power uses them to some extent, including the European Union. Trump’s tariffs I think are bad because he is “going after everyone” versus Biden’s approach which was to build a coalition of friendly nations and revamp supply chains to reduce dependency on China who is adamant about being a foe to the United States, European Union, and others. Tariffs are not a bad tool to leverage here against China, but the way this administration is going about it seems like a less prudent approach. To the OP’s point - I completely agree. If Americans can’t go a day without a flood of cheap, disposable junk (yes this is different than your iPhone or other advanced electronics), our civilization is going to face serious challenges on the global stage and further reductions in quality of life and access to resources. What so many seem to forget is that there actually isn’t enough to go around. And we have to enact policies and utilize military force to protect our nation(s). Ideally we can do this in a peaceful way that brings everyone up as much as possible but this is only going to occur so long as the great nations of the world see eye to eye on that. We can and should enlarge the pie. But it requires everyone agreeing to doing so. That consensus is failing. Many seem to think “China will just sell their stuff to the EU and the EU will get cheaper prices!” But that just places the EU in the same intolerable position the United States is finding itself. You must manufacture goods and provide services. You must have industries capable of creating products at all levels. Allowing too much of that manufacturing power to reside in one country, and one that does not like your liberal values, is beyond foolish. The fact that Americans can’t go a day without TikTok or cheap Temu junk, or stomach paying more for your iPhone and keeping it a little longer should be viewed as seriously and deathly concerning. And going without such things or paying more for them isn’t even in the conversation of national sacrifice or “hard times”. To add, it seems to me that “we don’t have the ability to build that here” when it comes to something like an iPhone is a serious problem. We have hollowed out our manufacturing capacity.

rs999gti 2y ago

> the toilet paper I guess these US manufacturers will need to step it up: Kimberly-Clark, Procter & Gamble, and Georgia-Pacific

toomuchtodo 2y ago
The feedstock for toilet paper (wood pulp) comes from Canada. https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-tariffs-on-canadian-lumber-could-result-in-toilet-paper-shortages-in-the-us-200334726.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-tariffs-on-canadian-lumber...
- potato3732842 2y ago
  Paper is one of the things one should be least worried about. We source chips from Canada because it's marginally cheaper to source it from there. It's not like the US doesn't have a ton of sources of wood pulp. Canada just has bigger cheaper sources (comparing like for like quality). We also burn a lot of "less than ideal for paper" chips for energy rather than feed them into a paper mill, also for marginal cost per result reasons. Wood chips suitable for paper pulp are also hugely elastic in the same way that recycled metal is. Huge volume is either directed into the supply chain or not based on marginal price. The people making every wood product are choosing what do with their waste based on chip prices and energy prices. Even your local tree service is choosing what to chip and where to dump based on economic conditions and balancing act between relative prices. If you wanna be worried about something be worried about stuff we don't make much of in the US. Super high volume commodity widgets made from metal, all manner of electronics, etc, basically the kind of stuff where our only domestic capacity is super high dollar stuff to serve defense and aerospace.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    Please provide citations for these assertions.
    - everforward 2y ago

AtlasBarfed 2y ago

People seem to think, including very disturbingly our secretary of the Treasury, the companies maintain huge warehouses of back stock. That hasn't been the case since the mid-90s when the PC revolution started pushing out supply chain management software. If I recall correctly, Walmart was the innovator in this space in one of their key ways to gain economic advantage over other retailers was low back stock demand tracking On top of that the '90s was when free trade agreements came into Vogue and the supply lines and outsourcing of manufacturing cranked up into high gear. So as we saw with covid, any disruption to this a highly extended optimized supply chain results in massive disruption. I can't see how any massive new tariffs isn't going to essentially be a covid level or worse disruption to this entire supply chain

antonvs 2y ago
> That hasn't been the case since the mid-90s when the PC revolution started pushing out supply chain management software. I worked on PC software for optimizing warehouse inventory in the mid-1980s. The system was designed by an applied mathematician and used by large national companies. Customers made substantial savings - double digit percentages of inventory cost.
- fuzzfactor 1y ago
  When you trim to the bone it's not entirely dissimilar to the kind of savings that can be achieved in other ways. In the 1970's, when Nixon launched his recession after an equivalent lead-up, I worked at the University for one semester in a work-study job. They only paid minimum wage, and these were easy jobs like library assistants where you were expected to be able to study about half the time. But you were working for the State just like all other State employees. You know, the maintenance people, the professors, highway patrol, capitol admin staff, etc. Career employees. Like everyone else, you had to wait two weeks after starting work before you would receive your first paycheck. About halfway through the semester it got so bad they decided to hold paychecks for two more weeks. :\ You mean everybody who worked for the State just didn't get anything for two weeks until it picked back up again? Yup. At the end of the semester I was made whole because my checks still kept coming in for a couple more weeks after I was no longer employed there. "Just like" the career employees who would be collecting for a couple extra weeks themselves decades later after they retire. Well, it was a recession, what do you want, prosperity? That ship sailed a long time ago :\ The source of prosperity done receded.

jp57 2y ago

HN should have a feature where you can tag a prediction to come back for review after some period of time.

jdc0589 2y ago
we need the reddit remindme bot
- kergonath 2y ago
  No, we really don’t. We don’t need a bot bringing marginally positive value for a single person and shitting the bed, cluttering everything with stupid useless noise and bringing negative value for everyone else. "Be more like Reddit" is really not something HN should aspire to. If you like Reddit, it’s ok to be both there and here.
  - jdc0589 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - nebula8804 2y ago
      years of trash flooding reddit comments obviously. Hes got a good point. Not all additional information is good. In fact the majority of data is garbage. Its hard enough to sift through the existing mound and i've tried to scale back my contribution to the noise (its hard).
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
      It's pretty clear that reddit hurt him.
      - kergonath 1y ago
        Not really, and I also use it, when I want the sort of things that I can find there. It’s just that most of the time I don’t. I am not really anti-Reddit, but I am very anti-noisy bots.

jillesvangurp 2y ago

Empty shelves are just one of the symptoms. The real pain will come from companies having to deal with increased taxes (that's what tariffs are) for Chinese components, decreased exports (counter tariffs, anti US sentiments), etc. and then their follow up to that would be using tools like layoffs, price increases, etc. Some of those companies might have to close doors and go bankrupt. If that happens a lot you get the ripple effect on banks via foreclosures of businesses and mortgages (like sixteen years ago). There are of course quite a few large US businesses being affected directly by this stuff. I imagine that they are not happy with this. And that level of unhappiness will translate into shifts in political donations. Which, I'm sure is something that will get more apparent as next year's mid term elections get closer. That's a stick that can be (and probably already is) wielded that might produce results soonish. At least, I imagine the CEOs of GM, Ford, Boeing, etc. might have a thing or two to say about seeing China disappear as a market where they can do business to sell stuff or to source key components that they require for their own products. China was not being subtle rejecting delivery of a couple of new Boeing planes. And reductions in container traffic from China (which are the life blood of the US economy) are of course a very visible thing. And since container deliveries are critical for supply chains of most manufacturing that actually still happens in the US, that could get ugly really quickly. Worst case all this triggers a recession. Those are rarely predicted accurately until after they've happened. But the signs aren't great and wall street is definitely nervous. A few stocks crashing because investors start panic selling could do the job. We're not there yet, but it got close a few weeks ago.

roughly 2y ago
> There are of course quite a few large US businesses being affected directly by this stuff. I imagine that they are not happy with this. And that level of unhappiness will translate into shifts in political donations. Which, I'm sure is something that will get more apparent as next year's mid term elections get closer. That's a stick that can be (and probably already is) wielded that might produce results soonish. I sincerely hope you’re right, but all initial evidence is the oligarchs kissing the ring, not pulling the strings. Maybe when it becomes obvious that they’re not getting anything for all that abasement they change tacks, but nothing in the Trump era has suggested to me that these folks have the tiger by anything but the tail.

dv_dt 2y ago

Retail shelves are a easy personally viewable measure, but a ramping logistics disruption & price increase on all sorts of processes we rely on daily may also be going on in parallel with more empty shelves. Parts for factories, cars, appliances, power stations etc...

aziaziazi 2y ago

The smart ones will head to the hardware store instead of rushing to the paper: bidet-washing-tube will makes you free of toilet paper for life. Cost: 10-30$ Installation: 20min with basic tools on your existing toilet. Usage: tons and tons of online tutorials because 1/3 of the world already use that daily. But you can also figure it out yourself easely, it’s way easier than managing node_modules on a shared project. Even cheaper alternative: a simple plastic bottle half-full and half bend. Many cheap labours in my city (Paris, fr) use one at work (cook, night cleaners, construction…). While the bourgeoisie fight for pooping clean during a world crisis, their Pakistani labor do they shit as usual. We should be inspired.

RandomBacon 2y ago
As someone who has used real bidets, I've tried bidet attachments - they suck. I'm going to remain with my traditional toilet until I move into my "forever home" at which point I will install bidets.
- aziaziazi 2y ago
  If you can’t use one of above methods for reason, there’s some « seats attachment » to transform your toilet in a (cheap) Japanese style. Here’s a 79€ one [0] but there’s many alternative brands with less marketing bundled in the price. 0 https://www.helloboku.com/ https://www.helloboku.com/
- projectazorian 2y ago
  You can get a Toto Washlet attachment for ~$300 (who knows what it costs now after tariffs) that as far as I can tell is almost exactly the same model used in Japan. Heated seat, remote control, dryer, etc.
- tclancy 1y ago
  They’re great relative to not having the option. I panicked and bought two more in January for just what seems about to happen. Should have gotten three.
- orthecreedence 1y ago

techpineapple 2y ago

I would imagine the reaction from the white house will be to attack businesses for failing to order product for political reasons, traitors trying to help China avoid paying Tarrifs. And I imagine this strategy will be more effective than one would first think, since it's nuts. I imagine it will change business behavior, maybe even to the point that business act against their own economic interests, the question is how much? The crazy thing is that will the Trump effect last long enough to negatively impact the next president or the Democratic congress assuming they win in 2026? The presidents numbers wouldn't suggest that it could go that long, but the world is upside down right now.

ethagnawl 2y ago

I made my first trip (of many) to the store to stock up on shelf-stable items this morning.

tomcar288 2y ago

let's not forget, "In 2024, China supplied approximately 13.4% of the total goods imported by the United States, with a total value of $438.9 billion. " ' And those are heavily concentrated in certain industries like basic electronics, toys, etc. in anycase, it'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

otterley 2y ago

The weird thing is that toilet paper isn’t even a necessity. It’s a convenience. One could do just as well with a damp washcloth. Sure, you have to wash it afterwards, but it’s not that bad. Or one could use a bidet, but I think most of these are imported from China. Oops.

kolanos 2y ago

It's a good thing the United States doesn't depend on China for toilet paper, then. > The United States primarily sources its toilet paper domestically, with about 90% being manufactured within the country.However, a significant portion of imports come from Canada and Mexico. In fact, the United States does not depend on China for any essential consumer goods from what I can find.

Zamaamiro 1y ago
What do you define as "essential consumer goods"? American parents would probably put car seats and strollers in that bucket. https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/28/business/strollers-car-seats-tariffs/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/28/business/strollers-car-seats-...
rvba 1y ago
What is the source of wood for that paper? Canada?
- kolanos 1y ago
  > The top 10 softwood lumber producers in the US have a combined capacity of 24.1 billion board feet, representing 50% of the US industry, according to Forisk. > The U.S. imports a significant portion of its softwood lumber from Canada, with roughly 30% of its softwood lumber needs being met by Canadian exports.Specifically, in 2023, Canada exported 28.1 million cubic meters of softwood lumber to the U.S. This accounts for a large percentage of the total softwood lumber imported by the U.S., with Canada being the primary supplier. > The United States can potentially supply up to 95% of its own softwood lumber consumption through domestic production.While the U.S. is a net importer of lumber, its domestic industry has the capacity to meet most of its needs.

FuriouslyAdrift 2y ago

This assumes domestic production does not ramp up to meet demand. Yes, prices will increase (pushing down demand). I work for an org that does packaging (boxes, pallets, etc) for a whole bunch of manufacturing, ag, and retail firms (Tesla, Thyssenkrup, Target, etc.) and we are booming right now.

hahajk 1y ago

If it's famine you're worried about, I think we'll be ok as long as the govt doesn't try to set prices/mandate supply [1] (which isn't out of the question I suppose.) If it's war due to decreased economic interdependence, well yes that would be much worse. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_of_famines https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_of_famines

3vidence 1y ago
Setting prices seems like it is just one executive order away...

fuzzfactor 1y ago

A Walmart superstore is stacked to the gills with products of all description. What makes lots of money is not exactly having so many different choices stocked, instead having a good proportion of items "fly off the shelf" can be the focus. The high-performance store will have numerous shelves completely clear every day, sometimes more than once per day, and they are perfectly geared to accommodate that when it happens without waiting until the more-organized nightly re-stocking. The store is huge, and if a big shelf stays clear for any length of time it's quite noticeable. But can still represent the tip of the iceberg if that also means that quite a big multiple of inventory is also absent from "behind the curtain" in the warehouses and upstream.