Get Ready for Empty Store Shelves; Did Trump Really Save the Lives of 258 Million Americans? Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: May 1, 2025

Indy Digest: May 1, 2025

Coming soon to a retail outlet near you: far fewer things on the shelves! And the things that are there will likely be more expensive—a LOT more expensive in some cases..

CNBC reports:

Shipments from China to the West Coast of the U.S. will plummet next week as the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs leads companies to cut their import orders.

Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, said Tuesday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that he expects incoming cargo volume to slide by more than a third next week compared ith the same period in 2024.

“According to our own port optimizer, which measures the loadings in Asia, we’ll be down just a little bit over 35% next week compared to last year. And it’s a precipitous drop in volume with a number of major American retailers stopping all shipments from China based on the tariffs,” Seroka said.

Shipments from China make up about 45% of the business for the Port of LA, though some transport companies will be looking to pick up goods at other points in Southeast Asia to try to fill up their ships, Seroka said.

“Realistically speaking, until some accord or framework can be reached with China, the volume coming out of there—save a couple of different commodities—will be very light at best,” Seroka said.

Of course, that fewer imports mean fewer goods getting to consumers. The story continues: “Seroka said he thinks U.S. retailers have about five to seven weeks before the impact of the curtailed shipments begins to bite, partly because companies stocked up ahead of Trump’s tariff announcements.”

What things do make it to shelves will cost more—and small businesses will bear the brunt of the shortages. CNN reports:

Once the cargo hits US ports, the goods take as little as a few weeks to hit store shelves. And when the current inventory runs out, more expensive tariffed items will make their way onto shelves.

“There’s a lot of concern. Right now (retailers) are in the process of trying to figure out their back-to-school and Christmas orders, and how and when they’re going to place those,” said Jonathan Gold, vice president of supply chain and customs policy at the National Retail Federation.

And while the larger retailers can stockpile more inventory, smaller businesses don’t have that luxury.

“Especially for small retailers who don’t have the ability to absorb any of the tariff impact, they’re trying to figure out what their next steps are,” Gold added.

Americans rely on China for thousands of products, everything from flat screen TVs to baby strollers. US businesses import more toys, apparel and footwear from China than any other country, according the United States International Trade Commission.

If there’s something you’re going to be needing, consider stocking up now.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• Three-quarters of the U.S. population would be dead from fentanyl overdoes if not for President Trump. That’s according to the attorney general of the United States. Yes, really. If you don’t believe me, click here, and watch the video. The Independent (U.K.) explains: “Pam Bondi has claimed that Donald Trump has saved the lives of 258 million Americans as she praised the president’s first 100 days in office during a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, April 30). … ‘Since you have been in office, President Trump, your DOJ agencies have seized more than 22 million fentanyl pills — 3,400 kilos of fentanyl…which saved, are you ready for this, media? 258 million lives,’ Bondi claimed.” For me, it’s the “are you ready for this, media?” part that really drives things home. My god.

• This headline, on an article written for The Conversation by a media expert, says: “Trump’s first 100 days show him dictating the terms of press coverage—following Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán’s playbook for media control.” Hoo boy. The lede: “Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stood before a captivated audience of conservative activists from the U.S. and laid out his vision for American politics. The Western media, he declared at a May 2022 special meeting of the Conservative Political Action Committee in Budapest, are ‘the root of the problem.’ The key to conservatives reclaiming power in the United States? ‘Have your own media.’ Orbán spoke from experience, having systematically reshaped Hungary’s political landscape since 2010, largely by reining in the independent press and replacing it with a loyal media apparatus. His advice, though at odds with democratic values, was warmly embraced  by his American admirers, including conservative journalists, podcasters and political leaders. Now, three years later, one particular political figure, President Donald Trump, appears to have taken Orbán’s words to heart, mimicking Orbán’s early actions and moving swiftly to dictate the terms of his own coverage.”

• Trump’s purge of all things DEI could mean the end of a state-discipline policy that kept a lot of students in schools. The Los Angeles Times says: “Violating a school dress code. Using a cellphone in class. Mouthing off at a teacher. There was a time when that kind of behavior, called ‘willfully defiant’ conduct, would get a California public school student suspended. But over the last decade, a sea change in state discipline policy—one born in part out of an understanding that such suspensions disproportionately affect Black, Latino and Indigenous students—largely outlawed that kind of punishment. Instead, schools were advised to turn to practices including conflict resolution and counseling. Now, though, an executive order signed by President Trump could presage legal challenges of pioneering California laws that overhauled school discipline by banning willful defiance suspensions for K-12 students. … President Obama had directed schools to avoid enacting discipline policies that disproportionately punished underrepresented student groups—a stance later supported by President Biden. Trump has said such rules amount to racial discrimination because, his order stated, the Obama-era directive ‘effectively required schools to discriminate on the basis of race by imposing discipline based on racial characteristics, rather than on objective behavior alone.’”

• Our partners at Calmatters examine the high costs of making more homes fire-resistant—and the even higher costs of not taking action: “The homes in the half-built subdivision look a lot like all the others nestled up against the parched, shrubby hills of Escondido, north San Diego County. But look a little closer. The gutters and vents are enclosed in a thin, wire mesh. Each window is double-paned, the glass tempered to withstand the heat of a wildfire, the stucco around the shutters resistant to flame. The privacy fences, a suburban staple, look like wood, but are actually brown-tinted steel. Every foundation sits behind a moat of gravel. National mega-developer KB Home is marketing Dixon Trail as the first purpose-built ‘wildfire resilient neighborhood’ in the United States. The next time fire rips through the chaparral in surrounding hills (a question of when, not if) this cluster of homes is being built to keep the flames at the subdivision’s edge. … Building a fire resilient home from scratch is one thing. Bringing older homes up to that heightened standard is a more daunting and costly challenge — and one that California lawmakers at the state and local level are only beginning to grapple with. … Some home-hardening retrofits are cheap and DIY-able. Others less so. A report from 2024 by the independent research group Headwater Economics put the cost to harden a two-story, 2,000 square-foot single family home at anywhere from $2,000 to ‘more than $100,000.’”

• The feds are going to start coming after people who have defaulted on their student loans—including “involuntary collections.” Time magazine explains: “Through involuntary collections, the government can garnish wages, withhold tax refunds, and seize portions of Social Security checks and other benefit payments to go toward paying back the federal loan. According to the Treasury Department, for those who have defaulted on their federal loans, the Treasury Offset Program can withhold to 100% of federal tax refunds, up to 15% of federal salaries, up to 15% of Social Security and Railroad Retirement benefits, up to 25% of federal retirement payments, 100% of payments to vendors, and 100% of travel payments for federal employees. Wage garnishment, which the Education Department’s announcement said will begin late in the summer, is when your loan holder can order your employer to withhold up to 15% of your disposable pay to collect your defaulted debt, without taking you to court.”

• And finally … today’s recall news involves … bread! Because of glass! Eek! USA Today says: “Bread sold in six different states (including California) has been voluntarily recalled after fragments of glass were found on top of the bread, the Food and Drug Administration has announced. The bread, sold by the Maryland-based company Upper Crust Crest Hill Bakery, listed as ‘Upper Crust Bakery LP,’ by the FDA, was recalled on April 12, according to an enforcement report by the FDA. The bakery, also known as the Crest Hill Bakery, sells partially baked bread and frozen pizza dough it makes with ‘non-genetically modified ingredients,’ that it then sells to major food retailers and wholesalers, according to its website.”

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