Shipping port shutdown gives us another reason to make it in the USA

By this past weekend, 29 ports that handle about 25% of U.S. international trade—around $1 trillion worth of cargo annually, according to an AP report—were idle. The labor dispute between the dockworkers that are members of the longshoremen union (about 2,000 of them) and their employers has slowed work for several months.

Not only won't goods be unloaded and put onto trucks for distribution to warehouses and retailers throughout the United States, but goods bound for export won't be leaving the country any time soon, either. Farmers who have agricultural products on the docks ready to be shipped to Asia are losing approximately $500 million in goods that won't withstand the 10 day or longer delays.

Articles in the business news media are telling of increasing damage to the economy, as port employees along the West Coast have refused to unload ships for six of the last 10 days. With supply chains reaching halfway around the globe, the time it takes just to get goods to West Coast ports is increasing. Add the problem of ships sitting in line waiting for goods to be loaded or unloaded, and the supply chain is rapidly becoming unmanageable.

All of this is just one more reason to increase manufacturing in the USA. And it's a good reason for consumers to demand more USA goods. Does it even make sense for farmers in the United States to be shipping produce to Asia while we import produce from Chile, Mexico and even China to sell here? Hardly!

So let's just add this problem—stalled negotiations between the dockworkers' union and the terminal employers—to the long list of reasons why reshoring manufacturing is a good idea! Too much dependence on imported goods results in retailers and consumers alike being held hostage by the problems between unions and employers.