Ominous Charts Show Warning Signs for American Shoppers

Almost a month has passed since President Donald Trump announced radical rates, well, essentially everything that the United States is everywhere.

In addition to the financial market giations, most of the effects of the real world have remained compared so far.

This delay is quite thanks to the nature of ocean freight shipping times, which can take 20 to 45 days to cross the Pacific.

In particular, orders from Chinese suppliers who have been canceled the most or after announced that Trump has announced that the new trade policy is starting to feel in the United States.

“We are starting to see this on the West Coast, and we expect it to worsen continuously,” said Jason Miller, professor and researcher from the Statch University of Michigan, at Business Insider.

In recent weeks, leaders of large retailers, including Walmart, Target and Home Depot, would have warned Trump that American buyers could start to see empty shelves across the country in the coming weeks if its policies are continuing.

At a meeting of the cabinet on Wednesday, Trump acknowledged that his policies could reduce the choices of buyers Later this year.

“Maybe children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls,” he said. “And maybe the two dolls will cost more than expected dollars.”

Whether confronted with net price increases or shortages of pure and simple products, commercial experts say that American buyers are likely to deal with difficult realities from this summer.

Here are seven graphics that could be remarkable by themselves, but together they stimulate alarms on the consumption economy.

GDP has decreased for the first time in three years

The data published on Wednesday of the Bureau of Economic Analysis showed a critical drop in American GDP, ending 11 consecutive growth quarters and sparkling the renewed concerns of a recession. It should be noted that the first quarter ended before the trade war was officially announced on April 2, but the number was shaped by commercial expectations, in particular the anticipation of new import costs.

This drop came from companies that draw import orders

The largest factor that weighed on GDP in the last quarter was a hot air balloon deficit in precipitated imports. Companies largely knew that certain forms of prices came with the election of Trump, and many ordered inventories in advance.

However, ordering a lot of things ahead of the calendar is delivered with its own set of expenditure and logistical challenges, and it could leave the retailers and the hook suppliers if consumption expenditure vacillates.

Freight volumes are considerably decreasing – in particular China in the United States

The containerized cargo is generally measured in equivalent units of twenty feet, or EVP, and the figures have lowered this week. Some carriers have said that transpacific reservations have dropped by 30% or more, largely outside China.

A spokesperson for the port of Los Angeles told Bi that arrivals would increase slightly after next week, because more and more imports will come from countries other than China. Many of these countries seek to beat the deadline for Trump's break on the so-called “reciprocal” rates.

But Miller's Miller said the elevator will probably be temporary.

“Any type of precipitation thing in the United States from anywhere else cannot completely counterbalance Chinese volume,” he said.

Instead, the United States receives more empty containers

Virgin sails are ships that carry empty containers to ports where they will be filled with exports. Normally, the port of the sees about half a dozen virgin sails per month, except once a year after the Lunar New Year Holidays in China.

The port says it expect To receive respectively 17 and 12 virgin navigations in May and June, and estimates the loss of capacity combined at 350,000 EVP.

Political uncertainty has been at its highest level since early in the COVVI-19 pandemic

Almost no one – From the White House to Wall Street to Main Street – seems to have a coherent image of Trump's goals with its commercial policy.

One of the results of this lack of clarity is a high level of political uncertainty that last time in the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Americans are historically quite capable of managing both good news and bad news, but uncertainty tends to lead households and businesses to lock expenses, reduce investments and take a defensive position.

The optimism of small businesses is in the stands …

Large companies are not exactly enthusiastic about the commerce situation, but many have declared several times in the last six months that they were well equipped to deal with everything thrown away.

Small businesses, on the other hand, often depend more on China and do not have the physical or capital capacity to avoid taking price costs. Small businesses also have purchasing power to ask overseas suppliers to compensate for import costs.

“Often, when companies and consumers are concerned about the future due to uncertainty, they will stop their activity,” Dana Peterson, chief economist of Conference Board told Business Insider. “Companies will not invest where they do not engage, consumers will not spend, they will be just sitting there and wait and see what is going on.”

… Just like the feeling of consumers

Like small businesses, American consumers do not feel well in the economy.

The feeling of consumer feeling of the University of Michigan took another nose of 52.2, down nearly 20 points from the start of the year. The last time the number was so low was the summer of 2022, when inflation was at its peak more than 9%.

Of course, a low feeling and high prices do not seem to slow down consumption spending at the time, but it is not clear that buyers will show such resilience this time.

Even if the White House changes courses, Miller said that pricing impacts and that the product shortages are starting to undress the United States while the price inventory is making its way through the supply chain.

“Many prices impacts will not be felt before the summer,” he said. “You will start to see the Tasters with the 145% price which probably hit the shelves at the end of May, in early June.”