Prepare for MASSIVE Price Hikes (Uncut) 04-28-2025

IT BEGINS: Prepare for EMPTY Shelves and MASSIVE Price Hikes as Supply Chain SHOCK Begins

Welcome back, everyone. Thank you so much for being here. For nearly a month, Washington and Wall Street have been rocked by a storm of tariffs.

But while political insiders and financial markets are deep in the weeds, a much bigger disruption is quietly brewing. And this is something that could hit everyday Americans right where it hurts the most. I’m talking about empty store shelves, your wallets and your jobs.

This isn’t just a trade war. It is a looming supply shock with echoes of the pandemic crisis. And the clock is ticking.

Let me explain. Since the United States raised import tariffs on China to 145% in early April, cargo shipments have plummeted by as much as 60%, according to estimates. With bookings down, ocean carriers canceled 25% of their sailings from China to the United States in the last two weeks.

By the way, those ships are already being repositioned to other trade lanes. This means that this mess cannot be fixed overnight, even if Trump relaxes the tariffs. In the best case scenario, if Trump all of a sudden decides to lower China levies, all those canceled orders will, of course, get rebooked.

And this will create a huge surge. And with all the canceled services and repositioned vessels, there is not going to be enough throughput. There’s not going to be enough capacity in the ocean transit network to keep up.

And so the result will be a surge in pricing on ocean transit, possibly approaching levels from 2021, 2022. Some of you might recall that when container rates from China to the United States hit about $20,000. And so that will, of course, affect the price that you pay at the store is going to surge.

And this is a quite unthinkable mess that is created by the trade war. Make no mistake. So let’s get into the details.

In early April, Trump ramped up tariffs on Chinese goods to a staggering 145%. And so this was the catalyst of this mess. What was the fallout? You may ask.

Well, cargo shipments from China, one of the United States largest trading partner, have reportedly dropped by as much as 60%. On the surface, it might not feel like much has changed just yet, of course, but that’s only temporary. This is just a matter of time because in just a few weeks, thousands of American businesses that, as you might recall, front loaded their purchases, their inventories in early 2025 in anticipation of tariffs kicking in, those businesses will need to restock their inventories and they’re finding empty cargo holds, not full shipping containers.

And so that creates a big problem. Major retailers like Walmart and Target and Home Depot warned Trump last week that unless something changes really fast, shelves will be empty and prices will surge. Now, Apollo Management’s chief economist actually likened the situation to COVID-like shortages and that’s not an exaggeration.

Behind the scene, businesses are panicking. Bloomberg here reports, a president of a family-run holiday decor company in Kansas who supplies major retailers says 250 shipping containers of merchandise are waiting to leave China. And so those are goods that should be in transit for back to school and Christmas.

The clock is absolutely ticking, he says, and he’s not alone. For example, Toymaker, whose company supplies Amazon and Walmart, says the tariffs are acting like a de facto embargo. Orders are being paused and soon they will be canceled, he says.

So, as you can see from candles to toys to medicine, the goods Americans expect to see in store on their store shelves later this year are stuck in limbo. And with many products sourced primarily from China, businesses are running out of time and frankly, they’re running out of options. Even if Trump lifts the tariffs tomorrow or today, the damage is already done.

Freight carriers have already cut capacity to avoid crashing rates. When the floodgates do reopen, hopefully, ports and logistic networks will be overwhelmed. There’s no way around this.

Surely we all remember supply chain bottlenecks and delays that we all experienced several years ago, just like we saw during the pandemic. And this isn’t just your household items. Medical supplies and health care products and other vital necessities are part of this mess.

Ports are designed for steady, predictable flows. Otherwise, supply chains experience disruptions. But the street war has turned supply chains into a roller coaster.

Delays, surging costs, and shipping chaos are all on the table. Let me share the data with you. Data shows just how far we’ve already slid.

Ships departing China for the United States are down nearly 40%. Container volumes have shrunk by a third since the tariff hike. It’s not a slow squeeze.

This is more of a cliff drop. The United States economy is now trying to stay afloat. The World Trade Organization has warned that goods traded between the United States and China could decrease by as much as 80%.

Can you imagine that? 80% backing U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson’s description of the current situation as essentially a trade embargo. Bloomberg here reports, in April, there were about 80 canceled sailings from China to the United States, roughly 60% more than any month during the pandemic. And this is according to figures cited by John McCown, who is a veteran industry executive, says Bloomberg.

The United States tariffs on China came at a critical time for the retail industry. March and April is when suppliers start ramping up inventory for the second half of the year to fill orders for back-to-school shopping and Christmas. For many firms, the first holiday goods should be hitting the water bound for the United States in roughly two weeks.

So imports are forecasted to drop by 7% in the second quarter of this year. This is the steepest fall since the pandemic began. And that is recession territory.

And so this is why economists are increasingly nervous calling a recession a coin flip scenario at this point. Meanwhile, inflation estimates are climbing again, as I mentioned previously. As China becomes too expensive for us due to tariffs, products will cost more, and sometimes the price will double.

That’s more pressure on already quite squeezed American families. Businesses now face hard choices, cancel orders, slash jobs, take on more debt. Neither one of those is a good option.

The pain is indeed real, and it is growing. Retailers might start filling shelves with last year’s stock if they have that. Layoffs could hit trucking, logistics, and retail.

There is a way out, of course. President Trump could actually pull back the tariffs. That would help.

But if the trade war drags on, the effect could be deeper, longer, and far more destructive. The next few weeks will be critical. For example, watch the ports, watch the shelves, and above all, watch the clock.

Because America’s next economic shock might not come from Wall Street, but from something much simpler, misshipment of medicine and other critical supplies. Thank you very much for watching. If you found this insightful, drop a like and hit that subscribe button.

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