Saturday, May 03, 2025

Trump Tariffs Hit LA Truck Drivers Hard

Amid a wave of unprecedented tariffs, anxiety is running high for truck drivers like Helen, who makes her living delivering cargo containers from the Los Angeles and Long Beach harbors to warehouses and other customers around Southern California

Posted by reinheitsgebot at 03:30 PM | 16 COMMENTS | permalink

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Empty shelves? Tariffs are about to hit US shoppers in a variety of ways.

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-- The Christian Science Monitor (@csmonitor.bsky.social) May 3, 2025 at 7:09 AM

Comments

Helen said that some of her fellow drivers had hoped for a better economy under Trump. Her own exposure is doubled because her husband also drives trucks to and from the ports. Because she is paid per load, Helen's income does not meet the minimum wage when there are too few jobs available.
"We feel like it's going to get worse before it gets better," she said. "You feel this looming uncertainty. It's hanging over everybody."

LOL!!

#1 | Posted by reinheitsgebot at 2025-05-03 10:08 AM

Point and laugh at the magat scum

#2 | Posted by truthhurts at 2025-05-03 10:51 AM

Hard to think of a class of people Trump could not give less of a damn about that truck drivers.

#3 | Posted by Zed at 2025-05-03 11:13 AM

They're probably brown so screw 'em.

#4 | Posted by snoofy at 2025-05-03 11:55 AM

The CEO Who Says an Asteroid Is Coming to Destroy America's Businesses

www.wsj.com

#5 | Posted by reinheitsgebot at 2025-05-03 03:22 PM

Excellent article, REINHEITSGEBOT! Most Americans have no idea what's about to hit us as a result of Trump's tariffs.

The guy runs a company that does shipping logistics for 13,000 companies, many of them small American businesses.

He knows what he's talking about.

Highlight:

This time, Petersen is explaining to anyone who will listen why hefty U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports could be catastrophic for America's small businesses.

"If they don't change the tariffs, it's going to be an extinction-level, asteroid-wiping-out-the-dinosaurs kind of event," he told me. "Only these aren't dinosaurs. These are dynamic, healthy businesses."
If the tariffs on Chinese goods continue at this rate, he says, thousands of American companies will fail and millions of employees will lose their jobs.

But since the tariffs took effect, ocean-freight bookings from China to the U.S. have dropped 60%, Petersen says. In response, containership operators are shrinking their boats and canceling trips altogether. It takes a while for downstream consequences to flow through the system"but logistics nerds can look at the data on their screens and see into the future.

If tariffs continue at this rate, Petersen says, it's only a matter of time before that asteroid hits.

But since the tariffs took effect, ocean-freight bookings from China to the U.S. have dropped 60%, Petersen says. In response, containership operators are shrinking their boats and canceling trips altogether. It takes a while for downstream consequences to flow through the system"but logistics nerds can look at the data on their screens and see into the future.

If tariffs continue at this rate, Petersen says, it's only a matter of time before that asteroid hits.

www.wsj.com

And for right wingers blaming Democrats for manufacturing moves to China, they should read up on the 2002 Bush tax cuts and learn how companies were given large tax incentives to move their manufacturing offshore.

#6 | Posted by AMERICANUNITY at 2025-05-03 04:45 PM

Republicans are destroying the economy on purpose.

The GOP is a Death Cult.

#7 | Posted by snoofy at 2025-05-03 04:54 PM

Thanks magat scum for destroying the world
You're vile despicable human beings

#8 | Posted by truthhurts at 2025-05-03 04:56 PM

Trump promised to destroy America's economy.

He's doing a fantastic job of it.

#9 | Posted by ClownShack at 2025-05-03 05:26 PM

Short term pain for long term gain.
The trade deficits and resulting debt must be addressed or else Americans will end up picking cotton on Chinese-owned plantations.

#10 | Posted by chiligordo at 2025-05-03 06:20 PM

Just a reminder that -------- net worth has doubled since being elected

#11 | Posted by Truthhurts at 2025-05-03 06:59 PM

#10

---- off, ------

#12 | Posted by LegallyYourDead at 2025-05-04 01:37 AM

The trade deficits and resulting debt must be addressed or else Americans will end up picking cotton on Chinese-owned plantations.

#10 | Posted by chiligordo

Our debt problem is directly connected with 2 Bush and 1 Trump tax cut which cut our revenues and Bush's doubling our budgets at the same time. Try cutting your income and doubling your spending. That's what GOP presidents with control of Congress did all by themselves.

Obama and Biden both left our annual deficits down after inheriting record deficits.

- Bush inherited SURPLUSES and blew those. He left office with $1.4 TRILLION deficits and DOUBLED spending. Obama got those deficits back down to $500b a year

- Trump inherited a $500b deficit his first term and blew annual deficits back up to almost $1.5 TRILLION a year

Don't believe me? Check out those facts on the U.S. Treasury's website.

Democrats have had to clean up massive tax-cut related deficits Bush and Trump created. And our national debt COULD have been paid off by the end of Bush's first term. Instead, he created massive deficits; doubled the natl. debt, doubled the annual budget, and left $1.4 trillion annual deficits and systemic deficits.

#13 | Posted by AMERICANUNITY at 2025-05-04 03:43 AM

#6 Republicans ran a guy for President who got rich shipping businesses to China and just elected a VP who got rich helping Chinese buyers load up on American farms.

#14 | Posted by northguy3 at 2025-05-04 11:18 AM

#13 Reagan tripled the national debt.

#15 | Posted by northguy3 at 2025-05-04 11:19 AM

__________
#10 | Posted by chiligordo at 2025-05-03 06:20 PM
Short term pain for long term gain.

Pain is obvious. What makes you think it's only short term? Because we'll get used to it, so won't feel it as much?

1. What exactly would constitute "long term gain" (even if achievable by businesses-killing, inflationary tariffs) because Trump has not defined it.
2. Expect about as much "long term gain" from Trump as was promised by his numerous failed businesses, including first DJT public company.

The trade deficits and resulting debt must be addressed or else Americans will end up picking cotton on Chinese-owned plantations.

This is nonsense - "[national] trade deficits" don't result in fiscal deficits and debt - you're conflating different things: real, government fiscal / budget deficits (government spending and having to borrow more money than it brings in from various sources) with purely statistical "[national] trade deficits / surpluses" (balance of trade, i.e., buying and selling goods and services by people and businesses who happen to live in "other" countries, mostly unencumbered by protectionist tariffs) - that's just parroting our seriously economically illiterate Influencer-in-Chief.

In fact, "[national] trade deficits" actually allowed / subsidized disinflationary expansion of our economic growth and helped finance fiscal budget deficits, and firmed up USD as world's "reserve currency" through non-inflationary growth of US money supply. Trade "deficits" is a non-issue, a "fake problem":

drudge.com - Bipartisan Bill to Give Congress More Power over Tariffs

drudge.com - Fact Check: Trump's False Claims About Tariffs

drudge.com - Is Trump Trying to Engineer a Recession?

scholar.harvard.edu - Truth About Trade Deficits / "Fake Problem" - [PDF, 3 pgs] - October 7, 2018

www.cato.org - Ignore the Politicians: Trade Deficits Don't Really Matter - Aug 29, 2024
"This is a fallacious claim because trade deficits don't really matter - not between countries and not between you and your local grocery store."

Trump's weird obsession / bizarre "idee fixe" with "trade deficits" is just a distraction from US budget deficits and his family self-dealing with crypto (including using his position and US Treasury to increase and pump his crime family's holdings) which also stands to benefit from destruction of USD as "reserve currency" from his policies - "Trump crypto-fascism" gets a literal meaning.

www.latimes.com - What will Trump's tariffs 'liberate' us from? - LAT, 2025-03-31

www.latimes.com - Democrats decry the 'chaos' of Trump's trade war but are OK with some tariffs - LAT, 2025-04-13

Even Trump's two main tariffs hawks, besides being wrong on substance and long-term consequences, can't agree on reasons for them:
blog.irvingjimenez.com - Trade Differences in the Approaches of Navarro and Miran - 2025-04-21

Shows how much bullcrap all these "strategies" are.

1970s - "Back to the future"

Play stupid games - win stupid prizes
__________

#16 | Posted by CutiePie at 2025-05-05 02:53 PM

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