Zero Ships From China Are Currently Bound for Busiest U.S. Ports

May 11: Week in Review

On Friday, officials from the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach told CNN that zero cargo vessels had left China bound for the two West Coast ports. Six days earlier, over 40 ships had been scheduled to depart China for the two Southern California ports. On Friday, that number was zero.

The CEO of the Port of Long Beach is alarmed. “We are now seeing numbers in excess of what we witnessed in the pandemic,” he told CNN, citing cancellations and the trickle of vessel arrivals. The numbers have dropped precipitously. And it’s not just Southern California. On Wednesday, no container ships were docked at the Port of Seattle. The effects are heading east, as the Port of New York/NJ is also bracing for a similar slowdown.

The last ships without Trump’s crippling tariffs arrived in U.S. ports earlier this months. Now, there are virtually no ships arriving at all — and the ones that do hold goods that are so exorbitantly expensive that the costs will be passed on to consumers. Meanwhile, the longshoremen have nothing to unload, truck drivers have nothing to haul, warehouses have nothing to store and soon, stores will have nothing to sell.

Welcome to the Trump economy.

Now, even MAGA billionaires are turning on the president.

First, it was the tech broligarchs, who are suddenly waking up to the coming devastation their pal in White House has unleashed on their bottom line. Here’s CNBC:

Meta Chief Financial Officer Susan Li last week said that “Asia-based e-commerce exporters” are spending less on digital advertising due to the cessation of the de minimis trade loophole that benefited retail upstarts and heavy Facebook spenders like Temu and Shein.

“It’s very early, hard to know how things will play out over the quarter, and certainly, harder to know that for the rest of the year,” Li said during a call with analysts.

Executives at Alphabet and Pinterest shared similar sentiments about slower, Asia-specific ad sales and broader macroeconomic uncertainty heading into the rest of the year. Snap went so far as to pull its second-quarter guidance over the unpredictable economy potentially shrinking corporate ad budgets for the rest of the year.

It’s not just Silicon Valley. Manufacturers from toymaker Mattel to iconic American auto manufacturer Ford have pulled their projections for the remainder of the year, amid economic uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariff policies. CNBC notes, “In an ominous sign for social media and online advertising companies, retail and consumer packaged goods businesses like Procter & Gamble have warned of weakening sales amid the turbulent economy.”

Even Rupert Murdoch is getting in on the complaining. In an editorial titled “Trump’s Mean Tweet” (seriously), the billionaire’s Wall Street Journal led with:

There’s nothing good economically that will come from promising to punish America’s aspiring millionaires if they achieve their financial goals. And prosperity will not result from encouraging the country’s most successful people to work less. Yet this morning on his Truth Social platform President Donald Trump opened the door again to an income tax hike with the bogus suggestion that government confiscating even more money from high earners will bring societal benefits:

Whomp, whomp, as the kids say. The billionaires sitting courtside at Trump’s inauguration and the ones relentlessly promoting his presidency in their media outlets never thought Trump would eat their faces. They should have looked at history as a guide. Dictators — even wanna-be dictators like Trump — always come for any competing sources of power. Right now, the billionaire class has too much power. It’s only a matter of time until Trump comes for them too. As an abject lesson of what is coming, the broligarchs, Murdoch and others need to review Putin’s early treatment of the Russian oligarchs who brought him to power to understand what will lie in store for them if they don’t change course immediately.

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Further Reading

Photo by Dan Dumitriu on Unsplash

CNN: Zero ships from China are bound for California’s top ports. Officials haven’t seen that since the pandemic

CNBC: Tech’s strong ad sales are showing signs of cracking from Trump’s trade war

CNBC: Meta says China retailers are reducing digital ad spend

CNBC: Meta’s continued rally could hinge on the fortunes of upstart retailers Temu and Shein

CNBC: Procter & Gamble CEO says price hikes are ‘likely,’ as Tide owner cuts outlook due to tariffs, uncertainty

The Wall Street Journal: Trump’s Mean Tweet

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Below is the most recently available national data on the average price of apples, bacon, and eggs.

Apples (Honeycrisp, per pound): $2.92 (up from $2.31 when Biden left office)

Bacon (sliced, per pound): $6.978 (March, 2025, up from $6.915 in December, 2024, which was Biden’s last full month in office)

Eggs (Grade A, Large, per dozen): $6.23 (March, 2025, up from $4.15 in December, 2024, which was Biden’s last full month in office)

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Salty Monday:

Salty Tuesday:

Salty Wednesday:

Salty Thursday:

Salty Friday:

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Bonus Content:

I did a number of Substack Lives and podcasts this week, as I try to balance the newsletters here with video content. Let me know if these resonate with you in the comments.

On Sunday, my incredible Over It! co-host

Michelle Kinney

and I discussed the explosive New York Magazine story about Senator John Fetterman. I was a very early Fetterman supporter. Now, I hope he gets the help he obviously needs. Check it out below.

On Monday, I joined

THE LEFT HOOK with Wajahat Ali

to discuss the brewing civil war in the Democratic Party. If you don’t subscribe to the Left Hook, you should. Wajahat is one of the clearest thinkers out there. We may not agree on everything but we do agree that the Democratic Party needs to get off its ass and learn how to fight. Check it out below:

On Wednesday, Over It! hosted former Canadian Minister of Parliament Charlie Angus in the wake of Trump’s meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. It was a great discussion. (Go Leafs!)

On Thursday, Michelle and I went live as soon as our new American Pope Leo XIV (a.k.a., Bob from Chicago) emerged on the balcony of St. Peter’s. We discussed the message the conclave (or the Holy Spirit) was sending to the world by selecting an American cardinal as the leader of the world’s 1 billion Catholics.

On Friday, I was driving to Pennsylvania from New York City as I learned that ICE agents were roughing up members of Congress and arresting the mayor of Newark. I turned the car around and drove straight to Delaney Hall, the ICE facility where this was taking place. What I saw when I was leaving Newark was chilling. Watch the short clip here:

I then called my old friend James Gee, who is the senior advisor to Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, and asked him to join

JoJoFromJerz

, Michelle and me for an emergency podcast. Check out the conversation below:

On Saturday, JoJo, Michelle and I hosted another incredible Coffee and Conversation (Tara was away this weekend but will be back next week, along with Rafi’s cat butt). We are growing this community like crazy, with thousands of new people joining us every day. Check out the discussion below and join us every Wednesday at 12 PM ET and Saturday morning at 10 AM ET.