by Peter Mertz
DENVER, the United States, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Joe Biden's stopgap measures to accelerate the flow of products into the country by increasing hours at West Coast ports will fail, experts on supply chain said.
Biden announced last week that busiest U.S. seaports in Southern California would increase operations around the clock, which was "a big first step in speeding up the movement of materials and goods through our supply chain."
COMPLEXITIES
"The logjam at the West Coast ports is only a small part of the problem," said Dale Rogers, a professor with Arizona State University, who has been teaching in the supply chain field for 34 years.
"If the White House only looks at that, it will not be nearly enough," he told Xinhua on Monday.
"Extending port hours won't solve the problem alone, as delays are also tied to backlogged demand from the pandemic, a diminished workforce and snags at each step of a shipping route, not just ports," Bloomberg reported Saturday.
Economists and supply chain experts also debated on the supply chain crunch, which is magnified by hundreds of container ships waiting to unload their cargo off both U.S. coasts, and by record inflation, price increases and delivery delays affecting the U.S. consumers.
"The ports and all of the stakeholders within these ports must be on the same page when it comes to a 24/7 operation," a Freightwaves opinion piece said Sunday.
The "troubles" are in part the consequence of a robust U.S. recovery from the pandemic, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.
"U.S. imports, measured by shipping container volume, are running at record levels so far in 2021," the report noted.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday that the supply chain problems will "certainly" last into 2022.
SOLUTIONS
The suburban warehouses, larger container ships, and more semi-trucks on the road are part of the remedies, said Zac Rogers, a professor with Colorado State University.
Rogers, who tracks the supply chain through the Logistics Managers Index, a monthly report that quantifies transportation, warehouse space and inventory across the United States, said that the month of September saw record cost increases in all three of his indices, with no solution in sight soon.
"Six companies, including FedEx Corp and United Parcel Service Inc., also committed to expanding their delivery schedules," Bloomberg reported Sunday.
However, efforts to improve backups at two busiest ports of the United States, outside Los Angeles and nearby Long Beach, have been apparently stymied by crane operators deliberately working slowly, Washington Examiner newspaper reported on Sunday.
Six truck drivers near the Long Beach port told the newspaper that crane operators are deliberately sabotaging efforts to unload ships quickly, by taking long lunch breaks, and moving more slowly than ever before.
CHRISTMAS GRINCH
Biden's focus on seaport operations drew immediate fire from both political parties, with Republicans accusing the president of ruining Christmas.
"Conservatives are spinning these developments into a tale about how this supply chain catastrophe is ruining Christmas, and it's all Biden's fault," Vox reported Saturday.
"In reality, these shortages and delays are the products of many cross-cutting problems that have existed for years, including the COVID-19 pandemic, rising consumers' demand, and a global and highly optimized manufacturing network that doesn't adapt to change quickly," Vox added.
"The idea that Biden is connected to damaging Christmas is another laughable Fox News fantasy," said Washington political analyst David Richardson. Enditem
