Cargo Ships Held Up Leading To A Shortage

By: Kylie Hapuarachchi

As the holidays start to come there is this horrible truth that there may be no presents underneath the Christmas tree this year. 

With the backlog of cargo ships, it seems to have left a delay in containers being removed and sent off to their respective places. Ships carrying clothing, shoes, electronics, and more are now being left at port with no way to get to their destinations.

The start of this cargo ship crisis started with the pandemic and the trickling after effects of it. Factors such as the original port closures due to Covid-19, the labor shortages, and the simple lack of warehouse space has led to this issue.

It is not just like this in the US, in British ports the same problems are occurring. Claims of a fixture will not be made until most likely next summer which means that there may be major shortages in the next couple of months including the holiday season. 

In Savannah, Georgia there are nearly 80,000 shipping containers that have been stalled at the Port of Savannah due to the cargo crisis. There are no trucks to pick up the freight, it is just sitting in the shipping yard.

As being one of the largest shipping yards they are dealing with minimal space left to place these containers. 

In Florida, Governor De Santis has made it his personal mission to alleviate the stress of the shipping crisis by opening up all their ports. However, this may also be difficult considering it will be a longer journey adding up to 2 weeks to pass through the Panama Canal.

There are fifteen ports in the state of Florida, with eight of those ports able to handle containers and do so on a normal basis. Therefore, giving the possibility to release some of the congestion that has been held up in the ports in California. 

The ports in question are the JAXPORT, Port Everglades, Port Tampa Bay, and Port Panama City. All are willing and able to take in more cargo ships to ease the tension that is arising. 

However, items will still be delayed and have the more likely chance of not being able to receive them by the holidays. 

There is now the sense that there will be an inflation in prices of goods, from May of 2020 to May of 2021, prices jumped to a 5% increase. This has been the fastest inflation rate since 2008 during the financial crisis. 

Prices are increasing with goods and services, as well as airfares and used cars. This is all a result of bottlenecks and the strong influx of consumer demand that the US faces on a daily basis. 

The other issue is that the US has a larger consumer demand. According to Trading Economics, consumer spending in the US is 13719. 27 billion dollars as of September 2021. 

There are people claiming that a decrease in consumer demand could actually lead to the economy being able to re-adjust itself. 

There are warnings that are being warranted to the consumers to purchase their gifts for the holiday season in advance. Hence, in some way to prevent the bare holidays that will occur this year due to the cargo crisis. 

The US is bound to see another national crisis hit them with the cargo crisis. This economic situation is bound to affect every citizen of the United States due to the fact that everyone is a consumer one way or another. 

Shortages of common household items will begin if not have already started. 

With Covid-19, to the blockage of the Suez Canal, to the current cargo crisis, it seems to be a never-ending cycle of blows to the economy.