Supply Chain Crunch: WH Admits ‘There Will Be Things You Can’t Get’ at Christmas

US Vice President Joe Biden pushes a full shopping cart during a visit to a Costco store i
Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

The Biden White House on Tuesday warned in an interview with Reuters that “there will be things you can’t get” for Christmas as the U.S. continues to face supply chain issues.

“At the same time, a lot of these goods are hopefully substitutable by other things […] I don’t think there’s any real reason to be panicked, but we all feel the frustration and there’s a certain need for patience to help get through a relatively short period of time,” the unnamed official told the news outlet.

The White House’s warning comes as shipping containers remain backlogged at ports on both of the country’s coasts. Recent reports say 65 cargo ships are waiting to dock the high-traffic Port of Los Angeles, which is currently full. Additionally, 8,000 shipping containers are stuck at the Port of Savannah.

On Tuesday, Coresight Research Founder and CEO Deborah Weinswig predicted that the supply chain crunch will cause issues into 2023.

“Let’s look at the math: It’s 14 days to get a container from APAC to the U.S. and 40 days for it to get back,” Weinswig told Yahoo Finance. “And we have a complete container misalignment right now. So that’s 80 days, we’re talking, in our opinion — we’re probably looking at Q1 2023 before all of those containers get back and realign.”

“This is not just a holiday challenge — which it is acute, probably the worst I’ve ever seen,” she added. “I think that this continues. And that is where we’re going to see innovation and new jobs created, but we’re still really short right now.”

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