US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Monday he was not concerned “at present” about American shops potentially running out of items due to US President Donald Trump’stariffs.
Trump has introduced a 10 per cent baseline tariff against most nations, and a far higher levy totalling 145 per cent on goods coming from China.
The White House also introduced several sector-specific tariffs of 25 per cent, and has threatened to reimpose higher measures on dozens of trading partners if they do not reach a deal to lower trade barriers with the United States.
Asked during an interview with Fox and Friends if he was concerned about reports of empty shelves due to the tariffs, Bessent replied: “Not at present.”
“We have some great retailers,” he said during the Fox News interview. “I assume they pre-ordered.”
“I think we’ll see some elasticities. I think we’ll see replacements, and then we will see how quickly the Chinese want to de-escalate.”
I remember touring a car manufacturing plant a long time ago, and learning about Just in Time supply. I remember trying to work it out in my head and assuming that there would have to be no roadblocks. Now I see that it has crashed, again.
Toyota actually has buffers in their supply chain that makes them resilient to shocks, but most companies copied the name of the plan literally and as a result have extremely fragile supply chains.