Recently, the problem of supply chain obstruction in the United States has become more and more prominent. Under the epidemic situation, the overload of ports and the shortage of truck drivers have exacerbated the problem of supply chain obstruction in the United States. The deep-seated reason is that the uncertainty brought by the U.S. government's economic policies and response measures for a period of time also makes the supply chain problem difficult to solve in the short term.

Outside Los Angeles port and Long Beach port, the two largest container ports in the United States, dozens of container ships were still waiting for unloading on the 27th, and the longest one had been waiting for 38 days. The situation in the port is even less optimistic. The waiting time of a container in the port freight yard is called "residence time". At present, the stay time in Los Angeles port has reached a record high, with more than 6 days for land transportation and nearly 12 days for railway transportation, while the time for trucks loaded with empty containers to wait for empty unloading in the freight yard is 8.5 days. The port freight yard is overloaded, and a large number of containers have crowded the freight yard.

In addition to the shortage of freight yards, the number of truck drivers is also limited. According to the latest data of the American Truck Transportation Association, there is a shortage of 80000 truck drivers across the country, which is a new record. In addition, the lack of truck parts and tires also plagues freight companies, and the shortage of these materials itself is the consequence of the poor supply chain.

Analysts pointed out that the trade war launched by former US President trump is one of the reasons behind the supply chain problems under the epidemic situation. American logistics professional media pointed out that the most fundamental problem at present is that there are more products to be transported than ever before, which is beyond the capacity range of the initial design of the system. As a major container port in the United States, Los Angeles port is expected to handle 10.8 million TEUs this year, an increase of 17% over last year, the highest since the opening of the port.

Forbes, the US media, pointed out that this round of supply chain problems began with the trade war launched by trump. In order to avoid increasing tariffs, American enterprises scrambled to hoard inventory, which brought initial pressure to logistics. In addition, COVID-19 has made the global logistics industry lose its predictability and accuracy. At the end of last year, cracks in the U.S. supply chain had appeared, but Washington was busy with party struggle and did not pay attention to it. Until today, problems have appeared in all links of the whole chain.

Analysts pointed out that compared with the growth of consumer demand, the demand of businesses hoarding goods has a greater impact on the supply chain. For some companies that have faced low inventory crisis, ensuring supply has become the top priority at present. This is the deeper cause of supply chain overload.

Some analysts believe that to solve the supply chain problem, we need to re evaluate the supply side and demand side, and find a relatively balanced balance, but this process will be interfered by COVID-19's repeated factors. What is more worrying is that the US economic policy is unstable, especially its continuous attempts to manipulate trade policy and reconstruct the global industrial chain. This will cause the supply and demand data of the supply chain to be in an abnormal state for a long time. In this case, the abnormal load of the supply chain in the United States may become the new normal.