{"id":407,"date":"2025-04-30T12:41:05","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T12:41:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.soapandseife.com\/?p=407"},"modified":"2025-05-03T23:40:47","modified_gmt":"2025-05-03T23:40:47","slug":"trumps-tariffs-loom-over-the-economy-as-shipments-from-china-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.soapandseife.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/30\/trumps-tariffs-loom-over-the-economy-as-shipments-from-china-fall\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s tariffs loom over the economy as shipments from China fall"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By PAUL WISEMAN, ANNE D\u2019INNOCENZIO and CHRISTOPHER RUGABER, Associated Press Business Writers<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 American businesses are cancelling orders from China, postponing expansion plans and hunkering down to see what trade policy surprises President Donald Trump plans to spring on them next.<\/p>\n<p>The president\u2019s massive and unpredictable taxes on imports seem likely to mean emptier shelves and higher prices for American shoppers, perhaps within weeks.<\/p>\n<p>And the higher costs and paralyzing uncertainty could exact an economic toll: U.S. consumers are in the biggest funk since COVID-19 hit five years ago, and economists say recession risks are climbing.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"related left\">\n<h2 class=\"widget-title\" data-curated-ids=\"\" data-relation-type=\"automatic-primary-tag\">Related Articles<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>\t\t\t<a class=\"article-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2025\/05\/02\/mark-zuckerberg-funding-affordable-housing\/\" title=\"Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s charity quietly cuts funding for affordable housing, homelessness groups\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"dfm-title metered\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tMark Zuckerberg\u2019s charity quietly cuts funding for affordable housing, homelessness groups\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>\t\t\t<a class=\"article-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2025\/05\/02\/yellowstone-fatal-crash-tour-group\/\" title=\"7 people are dead after a truck and tour van collided near Yellowstone, police say\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"dfm-title metered\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t7 people are dead after a truck and tour van collided near Yellowstone, police say\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>\t\t\t<a class=\"article-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2025\/05\/02\/head-start-research-cuts\/\" title=\"Email mistake reveals secret plans to end research on Head Start and other child safety net programs\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"dfm-title metered\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tEmail mistake reveals secret plans to end research on Head Start and other child safety net programs\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>\t\t\t<a class=\"article-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2025\/05\/02\/trump-media-pbs-npr\/\" title=\"PBS chief slams Trump\u2019s executive order aiming to cut federal funding for PBS and NPR as unlawful\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"dfm-title metered\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tPBS chief slams Trump\u2019s executive order aiming to cut federal funding for PBS and NPR as unlawful\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>\t\t\t<a class=\"article-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2025\/05\/02\/flu-deaths-kids\/\" title=\"CDC reports 216 child deaths this flu season, the most in 15 years\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"dfm-title metered\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tCDC reports 216 child deaths this flu season, the most in 15 years\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/aside>\n<p>An early sign of the damage emerged on Wednesday when the Commerce Department released its first look at first-quarter economic growth.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. economy\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/economy-trump-gdp-tariffs-inflation-trade-28a0da24c803c4796eb32704cd0244cc\">shrank 0.3% from January through March<\/a>, the first drop in three years. Gross domestic product \u2014 the nation\u2019s output of goods and services \u2014 was down from 2.4% in the last three months of 2024. Imports shaved 5 percentage points off first-quarter growth. Consumer spending also slowed sharply.<\/p>\n<p>Separately, a report from payroll provider ADP showed that companies added just 62,000 jobs in April, about half of what was expected, and down from 147,000 in March. It\u2019s a potential signal that businesses may be taking a more cautious approach to hiring amid uncertainty over tariffs.<\/p>\n<p>Asked how much of deterioration in the world\u2019s biggest economy could be traced to Trump\u2019s erratic policies, Boston College economist Brian Bethune said: \u201cAll of it.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n<p>As he promised on the campaign trail, Trump has upended decades of American trade policy. He\u2019s been imposing \u2014 then sometimes suspending \u2014 big import taxes, or tariffs, on a wide range of targets. He\u2019s currently plastered a 10% levy on products from almost every country in the world. He\u2019s hit China \u2014 America\u2019s third-biggest trading partner and second-biggest source of imported goods \u2013 with a staggering\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/trump-tariffs-time-china-switzerland-660aa519e9059de7d81368ec4eef4b38\">145% tariff<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>China has responded with retaliatory tariffs of its own \u2013\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/china-us-trump-tariffs-2e05057e973e1e26d1b95c5be003b4cd\">125% on American products<\/a>. The take-no-prisoners trade war between the world\u2019s two biggest economies has shaken global financial markets and threatened to bring U.S.-China trade to a standstill.<\/p>\n<p>Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, warned last Thursday within two weeks arrivals to the port \u201cwill drop by 35% as essentially all shipments out of China for major retailers and manufacturers has ceased.\u2019\u2019 Seroka added that cargo from Southeast Asia also \u201cis much softer than normal with tariffs now in place.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n<p>After Trump announced expansive tariffs in early April, ocean container bookings from China to the United States dropped 60% &#8212; and stayed there, said Ryan Petersen, founder and CEO of Flexport, a San Francisco company that helps companies ship cargo around the world. With orders down, ocean carriers have reduced their capacity by cancelling 25% of their sailings, Flexport said.<\/p>\n<p>Many companies tried to beat the clock by bringing in foreign goods before Trump\u2019s tariffs took effect. In fact, that is a big reason that first-quarter economic growth is expected to come in so low: A surge in imports swelled the trade deficit, which weighs on growth.<\/p>\n<p>By stockpiling goods ahead of the trade war, many companies \u201cwill be positioned to ride out this storm for a while,\u2019\u2019 said Judah Levine, research director at the global freight-booking platform Freightos. \u201cBut at a certain point, inventories will run down.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n<p>In the next few weeks, Levine said, \u201cyou could start seeing shortages &#8230; it\u2019s likely to be concentrated in categories where the U.S. is heavily dependent on Chinese manufacturing and there aren\u2019t a lot of alternatives and certainly quick alternatives.\u2019\u2019 Among them: furniture, baby products and plastic goods, including toys.<\/p>\n<p>Jay Foreman, CEO of toymaker Basic Fun, said he paused shipments of Tonka trucks, Care Bears and other toys from China after Trump\u2019s tariff plan was announced in early April. Now, he\u2019s hoping to get by for a few months on inventory he\u2019s stockpiled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cConsumers will find Basic Fun toys in stores for a month or two but very quickly we will be out of stock and stock product will disappear from store shelves, \u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Kevin Brusky, who owns APE Games, a small tabletop game publisher in St. Louis, has about 7,000 copies of three different games sitting in a warehouse in China. The tariff bill of about $25,000 would wipe out his profit on the games, so he is launching a Kickstarter campaign next week to help defray the cost of the duties.<\/p>\n<p>Still, his sales representative is urging him to import the games if possible, because he expects that retailers will soon be desperate for products to sell. If he does import the games, Brusky is considering raising its price from $40 to at least $45.<\/p>\n<p>Worried that tariffs will push up prices and drive away customer, retailers have put expansion plans on hold for next year, said Naveen Jaggi, president of retail advisory services in the Americas for real-estate firm JLL. \u201cWhat they are telling us is: \u2018We want to slow down the decision to open up stores and commit to leases\u2019 because they want to watch how the consumer reacts.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Consumers already seem to be freaking out. The Conference Board, a business group,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/economy-confidence-tariffs-f3cb9058971c008127f8dc22c8933296\">reported Tuesday that Americans\u2019 confidence in the economy fell<\/a>\u00a0for the fifth straight month to the lowest level since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nearly one-third of consumers expect hiring to slow in the coming months, nearly matching the level reached in April 2009, when the economy was mired in the Great Recession.<\/p>\n<p>Consumer spending accounts for about 70% of U.S. GDP so if nervous consumers stop shopping, the economic fallout could get ugly. Economist Joseph Brusuelas of the consultancy RSM pegs the probability of a recession within the next 12 months at 55%.<\/p>\n<p>Even gloomier is Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management. He sees a 90% chance of a recession by this summer if Trump\u2019s tariffs remain in place. Businesses are already planning on significant disruptions, particularly from the 145% duties on goods from China, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou see that in company reactions: Orders are down, (spending) plans are down, costs are up, prices paid are up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He expects large layoffs by trucking firms and retailers as soon as late May, as the slowdown in goods coming into U.S. ports from China works its way through the supply chain.<\/p>\n<p>Flexport CEO Petersen said shortages of products are \u201cnot a tragedy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s going to be much more about the layoffs that follow,\u201d Petersen said. &#8220;That\u2019s where the real pain is going to be felt. Shortages mean companies aren\u2019t selling stuff and therefore don\u2019t have the profits that they need to pay their workers.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n<p>He said the stakes are so high that he expects the U.S. and China to deescalate their trade war and bring down the tariffs. In fact, Trump and his advisers have sounded more conciliatory lately. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, for example, said that the triple-digit tariffs the U.S. and China have slapped on each other\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/tariffs-trade-taxes-trump-china-bessent-treasury-66668fa26957ece530a250fa8ea19faa\">are not sustainable.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>But more abrupt shifts in trade policy risk increasing the uncertainty that has paralyzed businesses and worried consumers.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, said economist Cory Stahle of the Indeed Hiring Lab, \u201cconditions may worsen in the coming months if people start behaving like they are in a recession. Softening some of the recent trade policy changes may ease some business concerns, but it may already be too late.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n<p><em>D&#8217;Innocenzio reported from New York<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By PAUL WISEMAN, ANNE D\u2019INNOCENZIO and CHRISTOPHER RUGABER, Associated Press Business Writers WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 American businesses are cancelling orders from China, postponing expansion plans and hunkering down to see what trade policy surprises President Donald Trump plans to spring on them next. The president\u2019s massive and unpredictable taxes on imports seem likely to mean&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soapandseife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soapandseife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soapandseife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soapandseife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soapandseife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.soapandseife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":408,"href":"http:\/\/www.soapandseife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407\/revisions\/408"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soapandseife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soapandseife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soapandseife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soapandseife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}