Biden’s Supply Chain Crisis Continues, Crippling Small Businesses

The supply chain crisis is hurting families by sending prices skyrocketing and crippling American businesses — including medical device companies, the beverage industry, and especially small family businesses.

Wall Street Journal: In late August, a small container ship called the A Kinka left Hong Kong loaded with, among other things, 50-inch Roku TVs, aluminum cookware and Fender guitars, as well as about 26,000 backgammon and chess sets destined for a small toy company in California. . .  It floated in the Pacific Ocean for 54 days before it finally got a chance to unload its cargo.

More than 100 companies needed cargo on the 574-foot-long ship, including giants like Amazon.com Inc. But for smaller businesses that were waiting for just one or two containers, the delays have taken a heavy toll, leaving some with disgruntled customers and significant financial pain. One small firm had Halloween boots that missed Halloween. Another couldn’t get paid for $250,000 worth of lighting fixtures it had sold until they were delivered.

Last week a record 96 container ships were sitting off the coast of California, despite Joe Biden’s November claim that the situation was “improving” and that his “deal” was “paying off.” Local authorities even attempted to aid the Biden-Harris administration by changing the way ships were counted so it would appear the crisis was easing.

National Review: Port congestion is not improving. Port authorities have simply changed the way they count the ships that are waiting. The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach adopted a new queuing system for waiting vessels in mid November. . .

Our Southern California ports are some of the busiest in the world, and the American economy depends on them. The present crisis has laid bare how inefficient and uncompetitive they are. If the government wants to tell an actual story of progress, it needs to address the underlying causes of that inefficiency, not change the way waiting ships are counted while continuing to kowtow to organized labor.

Worse, the goods on those containers are never going to make it to their destinations in time for the holidays — leaving shelves empty, businesses struggling and families without essential supplies and Christmas gifts.

Axios: Port congestion in Southern California appears to have changed little over the last week. . . There are 59 “loitering or slow-speed-steaming” container ships outside the new Safety and Air Quality Area, for a total of 94 ships backed up (down from 96 on Friday).

Holiday goods still sitting on boats will likely never make it in time. Now, companies that may have over-ordered in response to supply chain constraints risk facing an inventory glut come January.

Bottom Line: The Biden-Harris administration’s failure to take meaningful action to address the supply chain crisis is hurting working families and small businesses. No amount of false boasting and political spin can fix this crisis.