'We Currently Have No Container Ships,' Seattle Port Says

Huge amount of discussion in this thread neglects the idea that a massive increase in tariffs will throttle trade shipments. Its the obvious expected effect.

That's obvious. I think the question is more one of how long will they be throttled for? Even if there was a domestic or foreign nontariffed supplier for 100% of the goods in question it would still take significant lead time for the new orders to be filled and even more for cases where capacity needs to be increased.

Again further stating the obvious here but this is the _desired_ effect. Not saying if that’s good one way or the other but it’s clear the goal is to reduce inbound volume from the world.

No one knows, it’s a game of chicken. Will the suppliers eat the tariff cost if they start losing market share? Will consumers just pay the extra cost if they really need the item?

If the latter happens, will a domestic company come in and undercut the international sellers?

If the suppliers decide that it's not worth the risk of letting the consumer to decide to pay the passed on tariff then there simply is no consumer choice.

There needs to exist a domestic supplier to be able to fill the gap. My guess is that for many products, there simply isn't one.

Yeah, standing up a new factory will take five years and hundreds of millions of dollars.

Larger businesses like Apple will cut deals. Smaller businesses will just fold.

Maybe, but no trade means no new money from tariffs and the plan was to confuse the market get massive short term windfall while slowly onshoring those jobs replacing that income through corporate/income tax.

Now we have no trade and a drop in demand for US currency.

The on-again-off-again of the tariffs throws another wrench in there. It would be a big gamble to start building a domestic factory right now because you don’t know if the tariffs are going to stick around long enough to make it worth it. Plus you still have the issue of tariffs on imported materials cutting away at any potential margin.

> it’s clear the goal is to reduce inbound volume from the world.

This is painting the bullseye around the arrow - while this was entirely predictable, when did anyone in the administration state that this[1] was the goal? This goal is obviously is contrary to another stated policy goal of lowering inflation.

1. Initially, the stated goal was to make trade imbalances "fair"

> Now we have no trade and a drop in demand for US currency.

Trade hasn't been this fair to the US since before WWII.

> Again further stating the obvious here but this is the _desired_ effect.

Hanlon's Razor suggests that your statement is incorrect.

Tariffs need consistency and stability to be effective rather than purely disruptive.

You can see this in how much more effective the countries applying tariffs against the US are handling things. Since they are applying tariffs and leaving them in place, the incentives are working properly, and they are disconnecting from the US businesses.

In the US, by contrast, businesses are either shutting down or holding their breath in the hopes that tariffs will pass.

That's the period before the US dollar was the world's reserved currency. If things go back to that point it will mean the US couldn't afford to borrow at low rates anymore and would lower the ability to fund the military / society. Before the war the unemployment rate was 25% in the US.

If you take "fair" to mean, less imbalanced, that would give three possible solutions: increase exports, decrease imports, or a bit of both. Tariffs only make goods produced within the tariffing country more competitive within that country. I.E. they don't make made in the US goods more competitive outside of the US. Add that to the other stated goal of producing more inside of the US and unless they are expecting a consumption boom to absorb imports and internal production a reduction in imports is a goal.

Also the fact sheet[0] uses a paper which found a reduction in trade with China as evidence for why they should do this which I think is evidence enough that they are hoping for at least a modest reduction in trade "A 2023 report by the U.S. International Trade Commission that analyzed the effects of Section 232 and 301 tariffs on more than $300 billion of U.S. imports found that the tariffs reduced imports from China and effectively stimulated more U.S. production of the tariffed goods, with very minor effects on prices."

[0]: https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/04/fact-sheet-pr...

I think the desire is a stupid one, not a malicious one. If you read through their documentation and their statements they seem to think this is a positive outcome and genuinely desire it.

i think that was their point, sarcastically

yes. While the administration is full of wealthy people, the charity they need is all of us assuming they're not morons. Meanwhile, anyone who is not a moron and still feeling charitable is starting to question those assumptions.

By the time the effects get to me, I think it is irrelevant which one of these it is. Functionally stupidity is malice here.

Nobody ever thinks that they are evil. It's all for the greater good!

The point of Hanlon's Razor is that stupidity and malice are often indistinguishable and interchangeable.

It doesn't matter to someone getting the pointy end of the stick whether it happened out of malice or stupidity--the pointy end still hurts.