Perfect Storm: Supply Chain Issues Worsened By Chinese Port Closures, Trains And Trucks

A Perfect Storm: Supply Chain Battered by Chinese Port Closures, Trains, Trucks, and Workers

Aden Tate

The supply chain crisis isn’t just coming, it’s already here.

As Americans face empty shelves across the country, skyrocketing prices on everything, and a constant worker shortage, it’s impossible to ignore – the supply chain crunch is here. And it isn’t getting any better as a perfect storm gathers to decimate our inventory of goods.

Consider this: China is the world’s biggest trading nation. Anything they do market-wise reverberates throughout the world. Who is America’s largest trade partner? China. What happens when China decides to shut down some of its ports? 

This is what has just happened, as China has shut down the busiest port in the world by shipping volume – the city of Ningbo. In addition, the port of Tianjin has also been locked down, with many people being completely barred from leaving their homes at all.

These aren’t the only cities in China which have been locked down – Xi’an has as well (where there’s recently been an outbreak of hemorrhagic fever) – but they are both major ports.

Currently, sailing schedules within China are delayed by a week, and cargo ships are being forced to divert to Shanghai with hopes of loading and offloading their cargo. We’ve discussed before here at TOP how there have been serious cargo ship holdups off of the Pacific Coast here in America. And this is most certainly a major problem. Cargo ships carry massive amounts of goods.

Not only can we not get products into or out of these United States. Now, we’re having a difficult time transporting it about our own land as well.

This past October, 2021, one of America’s largest railroads, Union Pacific, began a legal battle with its union workers over Biden’s jab mandate. The CEO of Union Pacific wanted to force this mandate upon his workers, and in return, they threatened to strike.

It was then on October 15, 2021, that Union Pacific filed a lawsuit against the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Railroad, and Transportation Workers (SMART) – Transportation Division. Union Pacific asked the federal judge presiding over the case to find SMART guilty of violating federal labor law.

As of January 13, these workers, as well as others from other train-related unions have begun steps to go on strike. A recent attendance policy change has proven to be the final straw, and now, The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, which contains 17,000 members, and the BNSF have also joined the fray, with threats of strike.

According to President Ferguson and Pierce of the BNSF, “This new attendance policy may be the tipping point for what may be the ‘great railroad resignation.’”

BNSF pointed out that this movement is a trend as well. They stated, “As is the growing trend among all major rail carriers, the working conditions at BNSF have deteriorated to the point that there are many tenured employees leaving the railroad industry because they can no longer tolerate the treatment that they must endure on a daily basis.” [source]

Not only do we have a container ship problem, but logistics workers are leaving their jobs. But perhaps we can rely on the truckers? Well, it appears that this industry currently has its own set of problems.

As of October 2021, there was an estimated 80,000 trucking positions that needed to be filled within America, a record high. Trucking companies are not able to find the drivers they need, and the product isn’t getting shipped quickly as a result.

This is even affecting the packages which should show up at your doorstep. USPS has pointed out that there is a shortage of mail carriers nationwide.

FedEx has seen similar staffing shortages, to the extent that they recently experienced a $470 million dollar loss. Things have actually gotten so bad for FedEx that they’re forced to reroute approximately 600,000 packages a day due to their labor shortage.

More...