Last week CTH noted, “interested political followers in the USA should pay close attention to how the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWA) respond to the corporate media narrative. … Will the International Longshoremen’s Association stand with Trump, or will they drop support as the global trade reset emphasizes domestically manufactured jobs? That will be an interesting aspect to watch because the dockworker union leadership will face massive pressure to comply with the anti-tariff narrative.” (full article)
Yesterday, we got the answer: “The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) unequivocally condemns the recent tariffs that the Trump administration has imposed.”
[SOURCE]
All these moves are so transparently political, it almost makes you laugh. However, that said, we are now in a better position to understand exactly how the Democrats and Deep State operatives will weaponize the supply chain along with their union orcs.
In the next phase of the anti-Trump tariff agenda, approximately 3 months from now it will begin, we will see/hear a constant drumbeat of empty shelves, missing parts and missing products. Whether factually true, or whether the shortages are an outcome of a strategy by the ILWA to assist the shortage narrative, the overall objective will be to blame President Trump for everything from shortages of medicine to shortages of parts to fix, repair or maintain consumer products.
The process looming on the horizon is as predictable as Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg moving the stalled container cargo ships beyond the horizon so that no one was able to take pictures of the mess they created in the ports. Factually, the last thing the global shipping conglomerates want is for nations to be self-sufficient.
Global supply chains are dependent on extreme ‘globalism’ and, well, ultimately, there are trillions at stake. Imagine the collapsed business models if nations were self-sufficient. Heck, even a small drop in U.S. import purchases has the ripple effect of the shipping companies losing billions in revenue.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy would be well advised to assemble a proactive ‘supply chain’ group right now to game out an offset strategy to what we can predictably see coming.
Fortunately, I don’t give a rat’s pa-tooty about what this union thinks.
China Isn’t Taking Over Manufacturing, It’s Taking Over Retail | Frontpage Mag
“…After swallowing our manufacturing, China began consuming our retail sector. Amazon cannibalized our brick and mortar retail by dumping Chinese products in America on a massive scale, but Chinese retailers cannibalized Amazon and turned it into a front for their products. China’s retailers have been figuring out how to rapidly move products into this country, how to set up warehouses and eventually how to master rapid last-mile delivery. And then Amazon will have nothing more to offer Americans than a billion-dollar woke version of Lord of the Rings.
But if Chinese retailers need to, they can also make a diverse show with transgender elves and black dwarves. And they’ll be able to do it at a fraction of the cost that Amazon did.
Even the dot coms that drive the stock market have not proven to be immune from China’s reach. The Chinese employees who serve as cheap labor in Silicon Valley took the secrets and techniques home with them. TikTok proved that China could launch social media platforms aimed at dumb teens. Recent games and gaming company acquisitions show that China can compete in gaming and esports. If this goes on, Chinese companies will dominate content consumption for American teens even as Amazon spends $10 billion a year on woke shows.
Chinese social media platforms will drive American teens to Chinese shopping apps and platforms to buy Chinese products using Chinese AI tech. The only role American workers will have in this economy will be to drive the delivery trucks over to your house. And even that will be supplemented by Chinese drones and autonomous delivery vehicles.
And what will happen to America’s economy? We’ll be reduced to a third world country.
After gobbling up manufacturing and retail, China will continue to nibble away at whatever parts of our service economy that it wants to outsource. Finance will also move to China as those Chinese products will be bought from Chinese platforms with Chinese loan apps. American objections to these intrusions will be steamrolled the way that objections to the destruction of our manufacturing were with lectures about the virtues of free trade, of the incredible wealth that a trade deficit blesses us with and with the American cutouts for China’s economic invasion whose businesses will depend on carving up the rest of our economy and shipping it eastward.
If this sounds too fantastic, much of this is already here. Gen X bought ‘Made in China’ products in American stores, Millennials bought them on Amazon, Gen Z buys them in Chinese apps. Gen X watched ads on network television from American companies for products made in China. Millennials clicked on Amazon affiliate links to Chinese products on American websites. Gen Z watches TikTok videos of American influencers pitch them on installing Temu. Once generative AI is fully up to speed, the influencers, as the last to be eaten, will also be replaced.
American retail is turning into a wasteland just like the Rust Belt did. Today’s department store is yesterday’s defunct manufacturing plant. Coastal cities are promising to bring back retail the way that midwestern towns once promised to bring back factories. The Amazon warehouses dotting the landscape seemed to offer some relief allowing American workers to pick up a few dollars packing up Chinese junk before putting it on trucks. But those warehouses are only an intermediate step in destroying American retail by pandering to American consumers. Once there’s no competition, free one-day shipping won’t be needed to dump products in America.
That is why President Trump launched another bid to stop China before it’s too late. There have been plenty of warnings about China’s economic warfare over the years, but too few of them understood what was at stake or the scale of their plans to destroy our economy. Like a virus, China parasitically infiltrated our economy while at every stage always moving upward.
If we don’t decouple our economy from China soon, we’ll have no economy left to decouple.” …….
Amen! Truth be told, we don’t need the crap. Simplify life, what do you REALLY need? A vehicle that works, clothes, a roof over your head, food. All else is to impress people who don’t give a damn!
The Republicans really have their tits pretty deep in the wringer right now, don’t they? They almost universally want to oppose Trump on most everything he’s doing, but they dare not. Not now anyway.
Their approach thus far has been to appease him with words on Fox News and do absolutely nothing of value. Trump will then have his tit in the wringer because he’ll either need to continue playing nice with them hoping to get something from them legislatively or he’ll go scorched earth and burn the corrupt bunch of Judas’s to the ground. Playing nice is the wrong play, in my view, as we saw from Trump’s first term. The uni-party wins, the deep-state wins, and the people always lose.
You don’t crawl under the covers with snakes and roaches. You get rid of them.
No The longshoremen are traitors to the country. Support your Country and President. No brain , no education and too greedy.
Seems if this “empty shelves” BS is the globalists and longshoremen’s play, PDT could make deliveries to consumers part of his trade negotiations. Other nations that depend on the US market should be able to explain product delays as a political ploy by a single union. If the truth comes from both producing nations and PDT’s administration, turning the US public against overpaid union scum might eliminate the leverage of that union.
The leftist media controls what the American public sees and hears. Which narrative do you think they will push?
Enemedia says buy more stuff, waste resources, blame the rich and die in debt
The Longshoremen like everybody else want to keep their jobs. Isn’t that self interest capitalism?
True…to a point.
Name one occupation that wants to give up their jobs and pay. It’s all very well to discuss economic theories until you find yourself unemployable due to tariffs and technology that eliminates your job. Physicians and surgeons might soon find their jobs. eliminated due to AI diagnosis and robot surgeons The White men who invented and developed the entire computer industry found themselves laid off and replaced by Indians and Chinese within 25 years. 1960 to 1985 I know, I was there. Progressives think everyone should yield everything they have to blacks Asians Hispanics gays transgenders and non White immigrants. Conservatives think everyone should yield to economic forces.
Nice Strawman there Mari. What people in the real world do is ‘adapt and overcome’ during the course of their working lifetimes. Your little bit about The White Man losing jobs to The India Man and The Chinese Man — those were “outsourced jobs” by companies playing by The Globalist’s Rulebook.
PDJT is in charge now. We want to bring back the manufacturing stripped away and sent overseas by Those Who Hate ‘Muricans = The Elitist Statist Leftist Globalists.
American First, America Always, and Forever. Amen
But … People who are used to their unions telling them how “deprived” they are, and how they “deserve more” are gonna have to wake up and face reality. They’re NOT “worth” what they were told they were for all those years.
Do you have upgraded skills? NO. Have you found a way to work more efficiently within a shorter time frame? NO. So, what do you bring to the table to help me see you as someone who brings extra value?
Employee: Oh, I never thought about that! Duh. Uh.
No, its the more like mercantilism.
They eventually price themselves out of the union. It was a big factor in moving auto production to Mexico.
The UAW strike in 2024 was demending a HUGE 40% raise in pay and benefits. I saw a “man on the street” type interview of the strikers, asking what kind of increase in productivity the workers were offering their employer.
You know what he got?? BLANK STARES. These morons didn’t even THINK that they should offer something more. It was just “gimmee, gimmee”. Disgusting.
F-k the longshoremen. They have no loyalty to AMERICA … FINE.
We then have no loyalty to them. Toss em in the trash, and their tacky NY Cocksucker in Chief Sean, too.
Yeah, when I saw that Sean, the longshoreman guy, I KNEW he was a lying prick. He needs a smack in the face.
I said the union thug was just that. Can’t trust criminals
In the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach the ILA workers make $200,000 a year while the ILA Checkers and crane operators make almost $300,000. These union workers do not want to lose their jobs, incomes and homes because of tariffs.
The coal miners, oil men and steel workers didn’t want to lose their jobs either. They were forced to adapt, and they did.
Excellent point.
Not always true.
There is often shared responsibility in some of these outcomes. As an example, the steel industry made a huge mistake back in the day when the Japanese revolutionized steel production with the innovation of Basic Oxygen Furnaces (BOF) to supplant older Bessemer technology. American firms, for many reasons, were slow to adapt to the technical leap forward BOF technology represented – and they paid a big price in lost market share as a consequence.
EPA was created to prevent industrial innovation, you know.
Guess which union lobbied harder to make us hate oil companies but not the shippers ?
how many workers are we talking about?
85,000
Not my responsibility as a consumer to fund their lifestyle.
PDJT’s goal in all of this is not to undermine trade. It’s to create reciprocal trade relationships that are not based on comparative advantage engineered by subsidies, currency manipulation, etc. Secondarily, it is purposed, let’s be honest, as protectionism of national security/critical industries. Finally, it is one component of his overall “super plan” to reorganize our entire system of federal spending/taxation.
Didn’t Sundance say that these companies who were offloading the ships owned by foreigners? So if Trump lets them modernize and bring in AI robots they lose their jobs anyway. This isn’t a win for the longshoremen if they 💩in their nest.
Its not about the employee member either
It is the union leadership
The leadership is making bank via back channels
Very apparent, but automation is coming, and they won’t have a job anyway.
And we all know that only lawyers, bankers, professors, university administrators, Jab-n-Stab doctors, and other members of the Credential Class deserve salaries that size.
Trump should respond with a proposal to mandate Country of Origin stamps on all e-commerce websites. And that it must indicate the % that is Made in USA. Not just assembled or designed, but manufactured, including the component parts.
Amazon and other e-commerce websites actively work to hide the COO of a product. The best way for Trump to fire back at the tariff deniers is to punch them in the face with mandatory COO labels. Eff you people. We want to buy American.
I have agreed with this idea before. It is difficult and time consuming to figure out without it being printed on the label.
I’ll just keep bringing it up until it happens. One of the ways this country has been gutted is by hiding the origin of e-commerce products. TPTB know for certain that easily 40% or more of the country would actively choose Made in USA over a foreign product just because it is Made in USA. And a majority would if the product is believed to be superior in quality even if it cost a bit more.
Made in USA should be added in the drop-down list of options for how you want pages sorted, so you can get the Made in USA products up at the top of the page.
Plug for https://prosperousamerica.org/about/
Many fine people working for Country of Origin Labeling.
That’s so COOL!
IF this “sinks” it will be because his enemies succeeded in torpedoing enough of his good efforts, to defeat him.
And, that ain’t gonna happen.
Jessica Tarlov (D) on The Five just used the “empty shelves” line. Jesse Watters asked her “what can’t you find?” Crickets.
yes saw it.
Maybe, there is a bigger plan right there consistent with SD’s strong suggestion to Sean Duffy to counter the spin of empty shelves. The idea is this: Whenever a globalist asshole suggests a scarcity of some item then there should be a search for domestically made said item. A team, from the White House or, even better, online activist, find the goods and demonstrate not only are the goods not constrained but they are being produced in quantity in the USA.
We need a quick reaction to counter strike on the lies.
I can well imagine places like Walmart purchased stock to last them 12 months. Canned food can still be made, we make the cans, but glass food jars are made in China. Pasta sauces, jelly, pickles etc may vanish fora while, but they could utilize BPA free pouches for sauces, and pickles.
>Glass food jars are made in China
And the US.
https://www.fillmorecontainer.com/catalogsearch/result/index/?q=made%20in%20us&product_list_limit=48
> Pasta sauces, jelly, pickles etc may vanish fora while,
A) That’s what your pantry is for.
B) You don’t know how to make pasta sauce, jelly, and pickles, and put by at home?
Some people deserve “empty shelves.”
Tarlov is an insufferable “B”
Jessica jumps the gun.
Dems have jumped the shark.
giving the Dem mouthpieces their talking points. She used it prematurely
Don’t see the need to worry. President Trump helped to do away with China and their automation at the docks. Workers will still have jobs and union will still get a belly full of money to give to the democrats. Stop squawking.
India is close to a deal and the Asian nations came in board pretty quickly so it’s all Kabuki
I’ll tell you who has a serious worry. That would be these Euro countries (Spain/Portugal, etc.) who gave up coal & nuclear energy for this zero carbon nonsense.
They made their bed, now they’re going to learn the hard way. Good. Maybe they won’t make such stupid mistakes in the future.
yes yes they will.
its a cult.
where mistakes serve to reinforce voodoo science
“..zero carbon nonsense.”
Yep. They’ve been doing that for awhile. We have read reports over the past several years that in the very cold weeks/months of winter a lot of Europeans have zero heat.
The longshoremen are traitors to the country. Support your Country and President. No brain , no education and too greedy.
They have no appreciation or opposition when President TRUMP help them get rid of China automation and computers that’s would have put many out of work and save you and me money. Let get rid of ATM too so the bank will have more business.
how many of them are Americans?
If the ilwu causes a national security threat with the supply chain by criminally manipulating it, they should be treated as terrorists committing acts of terror against the country
this is a lot closer to a truth you might know
Unions are just organized crime. Just like state lotteries “for education dollars”. A real joke.
No one in the media is talking about how much China is getting reamed by these tariffs. Millions of Chinese are going to be out of work soon as factories are closing in droves. Many countries have been pivoting from China for quite a few years now very quietly. They rely 100% on foreign dollars and investments to prop up their fake zombie economy of empty real estate.
Shanghai, one of their “mightiest” cities, has a lower per capita GDP than Mississippi. China is the paper dragon of the East.
What you are describing is fodder for a revolution out of communism in China.
The question now is: is there a leader in china who could bring them to a true democratic republic?
Probably not. They will just change a communist dictator with one who is still a dictator but somewhat less communistic. Sort of like changing a Democrat with a RINO.
Deep totalitarianism has always characterized its governance style.
Mebbe the Chinese can finish up Tienemin.
i wish pdjt would have a press conference and spell it out for the idiots.these tariffs are temporary as we renegotiate fair trade.if we reach an acceptable trade deal tariffs could come off.BUT its gonna take time,can’t deal with 70 different countries overnight.
Yet… CTH stood with ILA a few short months ago. And, ILA with Trump.
The political winds, they are a changin’…
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/12/14/international-longshoremens-association-evp-dennis-daggett-releases-statement-following-meeting-with-president-trump/
You’ve one ass. Choose a horse.
Too funny was just saying the says. Times they are a changing.
don’t need cheap chinese crap LOL
Perhaps automating the ports will get their attention.
There is a Bible verse that says and having food and clothing with these things be content. America has been a materialistic nation for too long. If we have shelter, a vehicle p, food and clothing., everything else is icing on the cake but we seem to always want more. What does China have that we NEED no what we want?
China has supply chains, and “manufacturing”. The US has neither.
This matter if one is to apply tariffs, successfully and productively.
The irony is, the most marginalized among us, the redneck with a couple beat-up acres, some critters, and a garden is the wealthy among us in these times…. Late-stage USA.
we will see/hear a constant drumbeat of empty shelves
Which will then accelerate depending upon the item as people hoard.
we see the light at the end of the tunnel
unfortunately for you, you forgot to bring a light to your tunnel
The Longshoremen need to consult with their union counterparts in China to see what keeps them happy!
What do you mean, there are none? Just who does all that work?
Oh, it’s automated and no unions exist!
What! No unions?
No, the government owns/controls everything! They are Communist!
Oh I see now; just like the DEMOCRATS want!
Of COURSE the “Longshoremen” oppose tariffs because it will mean less business for them. Duh.
Shortage of “medicine” may actually save lives!
Maybe the will allow ivermectine and hydrochloroquine to be sold over the counter?
TN has allowed since 2022:
https://www.thedesertreview.com/news/ivermectin-available-over-the-counter-in-tennessee/article_75949fee-c671-11ec-adc6-3348de82376c.html
I can not wrap my head around the idea that a group of longshoremen can not see that this is for the the country’s future safety and security .People may not think war will ever to come to our country but it very well could and should that day come I hope we have the infrastructure to make our own essential first aid supplies, medications, hygiene product, building supplies, sanitation supplies etc.
Puerto Rico still has the many pharma manufacturing plants, abandoned in 2006 when tax bennies expired, but I imagine they can be cleaned up and revived. Make jobs there as well.
@sundance ding! Ding! Ding! You win the $64,000. Well said months ago. Right on point. I hope 47 has a Plan of Action once this stuff hits the fan in 3 months as you predicted.
ILA is and always will be a front for the Mob. Deal with the Top and there will be no issue.
The shortage messaging is already starting. Necessities even! The fear mongering is about COVID levels.
I hope the Longshoremen learn to code. They will need help during automation. If they stick with 47 then they don’t need to learn coding yet until if the DemonRats take over.
ILWU Crap Weasels! President Trump supported them and now this back stabbing!!
F these Crap Weasels!!
This is about ‘de minimis loophole’.
If there are empty shelves, the majority will be the result of panic buying, likely spurred on by the “empty shelves” drum beat, not an acute shortage. There are still these things called warehouses.
I would be curious what the rank and file think. Do they support POTUS or is it the position of the paid off union bosses? We need James O’Keefe to get a union boss on video saying how they are being paid off.
Unions have to go. They are noting more than agents to slow the economy and raise labor costs and therefore, prices on everything. They oppose automating the process of loading and unloading ships which slows the process down and costs so much more. Not automating this process makes us last in the world in trade.
Sure is odd how how fast US ports improved, enlarged and expanded but other ‘growth and development’ gets regulated into extinction 50 years after ‘EPA and OSH’ appeared to regulate everything BUT Ports (aka ‘transportation’)..
I don’t know how long shoremen in LA work but in Baltimore most of the longshoremen are part timers. There are far more longshoremen than there are full time longshore jobs. Hours are given out by seniority. Many ( don’t know exact %) have 2 or more jobs to make ends meet while climbing the seniority ladder.
Over time the incomes of people in the USA have gone down and the middle class is worse, the Elites are higher, and the poor has increased. The USA country debt has increased. This is due to lack of fair trade killing industry, Big Pharma, auto building, ship building, customer service being sent overseas, and other production being lost in the USA.
All other countries use tariffs on the USA but the USA does not use tariffs on other countries. President Trump is attempting to change this practice so there is free trade between the USA and all other countries. This will lead to production being brought back into the USA of many things plus increase National Security. Once this is done USA debt should lower, jobs increase, and wages increase with the middle class gaining.