Buttigieg: Supply Chain Issues Will Persist as Long as There’s a Pandemic

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg predicted much proviso concatenation bottlenecks, saying they volition proceed arsenic agelong arsenic the pandemic continues.

“If a footwear mill closes successful Vietnam successful September for a COVID outbreak, you’re going to spot the effect of that astatine the promenade successful December oregon January,” Buttigieg, who received disapproval precocious for taking a permission of lack during a proviso concatenation crunch affecting ports and freight lines, said during a televised interrogation connected Wednesday.

The United States is “seeing goods determination done our strategy and scope shelves astatine grounds levels,” helium said, blaming the shortages connected precocious demand.

The proviso concatenation issues could beryllium to beryllium much politically damaging for the Biden medication if bottlenecks persist during the Christmas buying season. At the aforesaid time, data released by the Labor Department shows that the year-over-year prices accrued by 5.4 percent successful September, the largest yearly summation since January 1991.

About a week ago, the Biden medication announced it secured commitments from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to determination to run 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. The determination was touted by White House caput Jen Psaki connected Monday, who claimed determination is “serious progress” being made successful dealing with bottlenecks.

But information from the Marine Exchange, which tracks larboard operations successful California, reported an summation successful instrumentality ships disconnected the seashore of California. As of Wednesday, determination were 167 ships sitting extracurricular the ports, up from 157 connected Monday.

During the Trump administration, the fig of containers that passed done the Port of Los Angeles broke respective records, according to reports and city data. In 2018, astir 9.5 cardinal containers were transported, compared to 7.3 cardinal containers passing done during Biden’s archetypal twelvemonth successful office, the information shows.

Buttigieg said that the White House is “also talking with the cardinal crushed logistics companies,” adding: “But there’s nary question that determination are challenges that volition persist arsenic agelong arsenic this pandemic continues, and it’s some things that are going connected present successful the U.S. Because we’ve already got a brittle strategy that has been under-invested successful for decades and things happening astir the world.”

Some economists, meanwhile, person said that national policies nether the Biden medication person apt exacerbated the problem.

“The nett effect of President Biden’s policies has astir apt been to worsen the proviso disruptions to a definite degree,” Brian Riedl, a elder chap for economical argumentation astatine the Manhattan Institute, told the Daily Caller. “And that was by shooting a $1.9 trillion stimulus measure astatine an system that was lone $420 cardinal beneath its imaginable performance.”