Remember folks: that big nothing currently docked in US ports will be distributed to a supermarket near you.
That's Trump's way of lowering the cost of groceries: when there's no groceries, there's no costs.
this post was submitted on 08 May 2025
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That's pretty much literally what Trump just said
No ships also means no exports. The US produces more food than it consumes. The US has an entire continent full of farmland, with foods that will be sold domestically because the biggest international customers have stopped buying.
Foods that can't be grown at scale in the US, like coffee will become unavailable. You'll no longer be able to get produce when out of season. But grains, meats and most other staples of the american diet are produced domestically and will still be produced despite the tarifs.
Obviously these tarifs are bad, and will harm all americans. But the idea that these tarifs will cause grocery stores to be empty is completely implausible.
That would require much more than the tarifs alone.
Too bad we can't eat feed corn or alfalfa.
I don't think Americans like soy beans either.
And that's the vast majority of what we grow and export.
It means things grown locally will drop in price for one season, profitability will drop on those products. Smaller less profitable farms/ranches will be driven out of the market because you won't grow 17 acres of a product that you get a $20 total return on for months of labor. Tariffs are a direct shot at small businesses. They go first. Then prices rise to make the larger companies enough profit margin to deem their efforts necessary. Everyone suffers, the consumers, the small businesses, the stores selling them.. the towns the small farms/ranches are from.
I can't wait to eat all of the soybeans and yellow corn #2 that they can't export out.
So, subsistance supplies are assured.
It's great to live in America isn't it?
No its not great. It's pretty bad, but there's no need to panic over fake problems when we have so many real ones.
my MSNBC watching housemate bought a relatively enormous amount of lentils & rice this week, is there some concern about food availability?
Overall, not really. For specific things, yes. Coffee and avocados are probably the most common things that might get harder to find and/or much more expensive.
having lived near the Port of Seattle, it's not unheard of to have it empty of ships. Sometimes all the containers are gone too.
I won't read a Newsweek link, but the headline is dumb
Port directors have been warning about mass shortages for 2 weeks now.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/la-port-exec-says-cargoes-010002973.html
I've yet to see it, honestly. This is a first for me.