America
Christmas Giſts Face Big Delays
COVID restrictions and a boom in online shopping overwhelm global supply chain.
T
he good news is santa Claus is still coming to town — but his sleigh may be delayed.
But don’t blame the reindeer: The
culprit is the COVID-19 pandemic, which in just a few months will begin its third year wreaking global havoc. The stubborn virus has led to a worldwide disruption of the container shipping industry, and extra-stringent COVID-19 safety rules and regulations at major ports in China have resulted in empty ships idling in harbors and goods stuck in warehouses. Additionally, Americans dramati-
cally increased their online ordering, putting an extra strain on the system. In Southern California, there
was a logjam of 40 container ships — crammed with hundreds of thou- sands of crates and boxes — waiting to unload at the port of Los Angeles. Gene Seroka, the port’s executive
director, told online shipping news service FreightWaves that shoppers should buy their holiday gifts now to avoid delivery delays. Meanwhile, China, which operates
eight of the 10 busiest ports in the world, has seen shipping slow to a crawl due to rigid COVID-19 testing and quarantine rules. In some instanc- es, a single COVID-19 case can shut down a port. Writing for the The Conversation,
an academic website, Stavros Karam- peridis, lecturer in maritime econom-
Justice Dept. Targets T
he justice department has forced the u.s. subsidiary of a major Chinese-owned newspaper to register as a foreign agent.
According to a filing in August under the Foreign
Agents Registration Act, the DOJ determined that the Sing Tao Daily’s operations qualified as a foreign influ- ence effort, Axios reported. Sing Tao is Hong Kong’s oldest and second-largest Chinese-language newspaper. It has 16 overseas edi- tions. Its U.S. edition is aimed at Cantonese-speaking immigrants from Hong Kong. Critics have charged that the paper is under the influ-
ence of the Chinese Communist Party but, according to Sing Tao, it is privately owned.
22 NEWSMAX | OCTOBER 2021
ics at the University of Plymouth, England, estimated the cost of mov- ing a 40-foot container from China to Europe is now about $14,000 — 10 times what it would normally be. And the increase is getting passed on to consumers. What does this all mean for the big
shopping days ahead? “The fact that shipments are still
being delayed suggests that there may be far-reaching effects on the Black Friday and Christmas shopping seasons,” Josh Brazil, of the supply chain platform Project44, told Supply- ChainDigest. The bottom line? Order early or
tell the kids that Santa needs a break this year.
Chinese-Language Newspaper Critics charge Sing Tao Daily is under Beijing’s influence.
Sing Tao’s U.S. operations consist of newspapers in
New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, and a radio station based in Burlingame, California.
APIMAGES / DUTCHMEN PHOTOGRAPHY/SHUTTERSTOCK
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