Tidal wave of change headed for US

American consumers are not yet seeing much evidence of the drastic changes President Trump has made on trade. But they are on their way, writes Ana Swanson from Washington

- Ana Swanson

When the Covid pandemic hit, factories in China shut down and global shipping traffic slowed. Within a matter of a few weeks, products began disappearing from US store shelves and American firms that depend on foreign materials were going out of business.

A similar trend is beginning to play out, but this time the catalyst is President Donald Trump's decision to raise tariffs on Chinese imports to at least 145%, an amount so steep that much of the trade between the United States and China has ground to a halt. Fewer massive container ships have been plying the ocean between Chinese and American ports, and in the coming weeks, far fewer Chinese goods will arrive on American shores.

While high tariffs on Chinese products have been in place since early April, the availability of Chinese products and the price that consumers pay for them has not changed that much. But some companies are now starting to raise their prices. And experts say that the effects will become more and more obvious in the coming weeks, as a tidal wave of change stemming from cancelled orders in Chinese factories works its way around the world to the United States.

The number of massive container ships carrying metal boxes of toys, furniture and other products departing China for the United States has plummeted by about a third this month.

The reason consumers haven't felt many of the effects yet is because it takes 20 to 40 days for a container ship to travel across the Pacific Ocean. It then takes another one to 10 days for Chinese goods to make their way by train or truck to various cities around the country, economists at Apollo Global Management wrote in a recent report. That means that the higher tariffs on China that went into effect at the beginning of April are just starting to result in a drop in the number of ships arriving at American ports, a trend that should intensify.