So how did this happen? The Covid-19 pandemic is definitely at the bottom of the problem. As the center of manufacture, China exports around $2000 billion every year. The shutdowns of factories and ports in China led to shortages of children's toys, timber, new clothes, and pet food in the U.S. and elsewhere, while also pushing up consumer prices. What made the situation worse is that the shortage of labor in the U.S. resulted in the lack of lorry drivers and port staff to unload and deliver the goods when ships reach the ports. Therefore, containers are getting stacked up and ships are getting congested in ports. For example, on one day in September, a record 73 ships were forced to queue outside for a berth in the Los Angeles port. It had to move 30% more shipping containers than usual in August, while Long Beach moved an extra 23%. The shortage of drivers also means that there is a delay in returning empty containers for re-use, which further exacerbates the situation because it not only drives up the shipping fees that businesses have to pay but also causes a longer-than-usual delivery period of the goods.
Besides major ports picking up night shifts to reduce their empty container stocks with the help from Walmart, UPS, FedEx, Samsung, The Home Depot, and Target, the White House has been making attempts to tackle the supply chain problem in general. Early this year, a Supply Chains Task Force was established and a Port Envoy was appointed to find remedies for the disruption. Not to mention the effort that the Biden administration put into passing the $1tn (£730bn) infrastructure bill which includes investments in improving the logistics of ports in the United States.
Credit: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58901777
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58895246