Trade After Covid Tempest Slows With Real Economy: Supply Lines

Years from now, trade historians may look back at September 2022 as the high-water mark for 21st century globalism.

Before that period, locked-down Americans propped up with stimulus checks and PPP loans helped fuel an unprecedented consumer shopping spree that stiffened the sails of the world’s shipping companies and helped the US avert an economic disaster.

But something shifted last September. Rising inflation and higher interest rates depressed household demand for cheap imported goods. Companies that had stockpiled parts and products on fear of the pandemic’s unknowns were caught with too much inventory, leading to a whiplash effect that depressed ...