(End of the American Dream)—The United States imported 438 billion dollars worth of goods from China in 2024. All of a sudden, most of that trade is being cut off. Tariffs on Chinese goods are now so high that it no longer makes economic sense for Chinese companies to export products to us, and it no longer makes economic sense for U.S. companies to import products from China. As a result, container bookings are absolutely plummeting, and retail CEOs are warning that store shelves all over America will “soon be empty”. Yes, retailers will attempt to find replacement items from other sources when it is possible to do so. But in many cases, things that are made in China are not made anywhere else. As retailers run through existing inventory levels, shortages will begin to emerge.
I do not believe that we should have ever started trading with China. And I would love to see a day in the future when we no longer trade with China.
But at this moment we are deeply, deeply dependent on China. Nobody can deny this.
Our economy literally cannot function normally without Chinese imports, and now most of those imports will no longer be coming across the ocean. Most Chinese imports fall into these 10 categories…
- Electrical machinery and TV parts: $124.97 billion, 28% of total imports from China
- Nuclear reactor parts and mechanical appliances: $82 billion, 18% of total imports from China
- Toys, games and sports equipment: $30.03 billion, 7% of imports from China
- Plastics: $19.29 billion, 4% of total imports from China
- Furniture, lamps and pre-fabricated buildings: $18.52, 4% of total imports from China
- Vehicles: $16.85 billion, 4% of total imports from China
- Iron and steel: $11.98 billion, 3% of total imports from China
- Optical and photographic parts: $11.88 billion, 3% of total imports from China
- Clothing: $9.99 billion, 2% of total imports from China
- Shoes: $9.78 billion, 2% of total imports from China
Did you know that China makes 80 percent of our toys?
If you are going to need toys later this year, you may want to stock up now.
It is being reported that container bookings from China to the United States have already “plummeted by over 60% in just three weeks”…
Container shipping between China and the United States faces unprecedented disruption following the implementation of new Trump administration tariffs on U.S. imports from China, with industry leaders warning of potential widespread supply chain impacts and economic consequences that could rival the pandemic.
According to Ryan Peterson, Founder and CEO of Flexport, ocean container bookings from China to the United States have plummeted by over 60% in just three weeks since the new tariffs took effect. The dramatic decline follows the introduction of reciprocal tariffs that went into effect on April 9, setting rates at 145% for China and 10% for all other origin points.
I told you what I thought about this in an article that I posted yesterday.
Today, I would like to share some insights from an industry insider.
Molson Hart is the founder and president of an educational toy company called Viahart. He just posted an analysis of what we are facing that is so good that I decided to share his entire Twitter post in this article…
The White House has put itself and the country in a bad situation but doesn’t realize it yet.
Around April 10th China to USA trade shut down.
It takes ~30 days for containers to go from China to LA.
45 to Houston by sea, 45 to Chicago by train.
55 to New York by sea.
That means that there are no economic effects of what was done on April 10th until about May 10th.
Around that time (it’s already started to happen) trucking work is going to dry up. Warehouses will start doing layoffs because no labor is needed to unload containers and some products will be out of stock, reducing the need for shipping labor.
All this will start in the Los Angeles area.
After about 2 weeks, it’ll start hitting Chicago and Houston.
Let’s say the White House, after 3 weeks, changes its mind, on May 31st.
“This isn’t working out like we thought it would. Tariffs back to 0.”
Let’s say China says “bygones be bygones, we’ll go back to how things were”.
Let’s say every factory in China that got screwed by their orders being cancelled says the same thing “no problem, we’ll make and ship”.
The problem is, even under the most favorable conditions of China and the factories restarting economic ties as though nothing happened, it will be at least another 30 days before economic activity is revived.
And that’s just in LA.
In Chicago/Houston, you’ll need to wait another 45 days.
New York, at that point, will still be getting containers from before April 10th, they will then have 50 days (May 31 minus April 10) of zero economic activity at the ports, in trucking of Chinese goods, in warehousing.
The whole situation is a bit like lockdowns. Once you shut down, it takes a long time to get economic activity back to where it was, if you ever can.
And again, this assumes, that China and its factories, which make things you can’t buy elsewhere, will start right back up again as though nothing happened, which is unlikely.
It’s almost like we’re speeding towards a brick wall but the driver of the car doesn’t see it yet.
By the time he does, it’ll be too late to hit the brakes.
I could not have said it better myself.
When we finally hit that brick wall, millions of people are going to be extremely angry.
Many are suggesting that we should just start making stuff here, and I agree with that.
But the reality of the matter is that it takes a long time to construct new factories.
In a subsequent post on Twitter, Molson Hart commented on this…
Lego is building a factory in the United States.
They began looking for a location in 2021.
They originally expected to start production in the second half of 2025.
They are now forecasting 2027.
The biggest toy company in the world needed 6 years to make in America.
We can’t wait for years until new factories are built, because we are going to be in the middle of a full-blown crisis just months from now.
For example, what are you going to do if you need to get your vehicle repaired and the parts that you need have tripled in price or are no longer available at all?…
“From brake pads and batteries to bumpers and sensors, many of the parts used to repair and maintain vehicles are imported,” Cars.com editor-in-chief Jenni Newman told FOX Business. “If those parts are hit with tariffs, suppliers are expected to pass on the extra cost to repair shops and dealership service departments.”
Not only would this drive up repair bills for consumers, but it could also cause longer wait times if parts become harder to get or inventory is scaled back, Newman said.
There are thousands upon thousands of supply chains that will be disrupted by ultra-high tariffs on Chinese imports.
Unless we want to have a full-blown meltdown, we need to reach a deal with China.
Unfortunately, the Chinese just publicly stated that no negotiations with the U.S. are currently happening…
China is not negotiating with the U.S. over tariffs, Beijing declared Thursday, despite President Donald Trump recently suggesting the 145% tax on its imports could be reduced “substantially.”
Ministry of Commerce spokesman He Yadong said, “Any claims about the progress of China-U.S. trade negotiations are groundless as trying to catch the wind and have no factual basis,” according to the Associated Press.
“The unilateral tariff increase measures were initiated by the United States. If the United States really wants to solve the problem, it should face up to the rational voices of the international community and all parties at home, completely cancel all unilateral tariff measures against China, and find ways to resolve differences through equal dialogue,” he continued.
We should have never allowed ourselves to become so dependent on China.
Sometimes I feel like tearing my hair out, because decades of very foolish decisions have put us into this position.
Now we desperately need Chinese imports, but most of them won’t be coming to us for the foreseeable future, and President Trump just told Glenn Beck that he feels like he is holding all the cards and doesn’t need to negotiate…
‘I don’t have to negotiate. I don’t have to negotiate. I’m talking to people out of respect, but I don’t have to,’ Trump told the former Fox News host.
‘So we’re this giant store that people want to come in and buy from, we’re the United States. We have the richest consumers, etcetera, etcetera, right?’ the president continued.
Trump said he was currently negotiating with ’70 different countries.’
‘We’re negotiating, we’re showing great respect, but in the end, we may make deals, but either that or I just set a price and I say “here’s what you’re going to pay for the privilege of servicing the United States of America,”‘ Trump said.
There are some people out there that are insisting that I am overstating the seriousness of the crisis that we are facing.
Okay, let’s see what happens.
If a deal with China can be reached quickly, it is quite likely that the damage will be minimized.
I would be thrilled if that actually happens.
But if a deal with China cannot be reached quickly, we are going to experience a tremendous amount of pain.
Container traffic across the Pacific Ocean has already fallen dramatically, and the clock is ticking…
Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
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Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
