WASHINGTON — If you enjoyed empty store shelves during the COVID pandemic, there’s some great news right around the corner.

Thanks to President Donald Trump’s trade war against the world and associated trillion-dollar tax hike on American importers, consumers will within weeks start seeing shortages on household goods, consumer electronics, clothes — pretty much everything that enters the country from overseas, and especially those things coming from China.

The volume of products entering U.S. ports has fallen 20 to 30% — comparable to the 25% reduction in April 2020 because of COVID, but with the added wrinkle of on-then-off-then-on-at-an-extra-high-rate-then-maybe-a-lower-rate chaos from the president himself, making companies’ ability to create a business plan all but impossible.

“I’ve been doing this 40 years, and I’ve never seen it like this,” said Bernie Hart, vice president of customs and trade business development at Flexport, a company that brokers customs clearance and logistics for importers and exporters.

Trump’s White House did not respond to HuffPost queries. Trump personally has continued to defend his trade war in recent comments, claiming tariffs are bringing in massive new revenues while simultaneously arguing he is seeking trade agreements that would presumably dramatically reduce those revenues.

And even if Trump were to formalize a hinted-at coming retreat in his trade war, shortages in chain stores as well as smaller retailers are essentially guaranteed, at least temporarily.

The problem is that while Trump can change course in seconds via a social media post, the world’s supply chains cannot. Most international trade takes place using oceanic shipping, which, though efficient, is by its nature slow while the oceans are vast. A container ship leaving ports in China, for example, needs at least a month to cross the Pacific before arriving in Los Angeles.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday morning he is not concerned about shortages. “We have some great retailers. I assume they preordered,” he told Fox News.

Hart said that larger retailers have warehouses of inventory that they can go through, even if no replacement product is coming in. “Once that depletes, then you’re going to start seeing shortages and empty shelves,” he said.

Trump on his so-called “Liberation Day” early this month unilaterally imposed a 10% tax on all imports, except those specifically exempted by the free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, with the further exception of imports from China. Those were taxed at 54%, but Trump raised that rate to 145% after China retaliated with its own tariffs against U.S. goods.

David Levi, founder of a small business in Charlottesville, Virginia, that makes electronics kits using components he imports primarily from China, said that under Trump’s original 54% rate on Chinese goods, he calculated that he would have to raise his prices on his $50 and $60 kits between 20 and 25% to make up for the new import tax.

“At 145%, it’s basically hibernate the company,” he said. “It will be: furlough my worker, turn off the lights and maybe find a hobby.”

Levi is among several business owners who have sued Trump in the U.S. Court of International Trade to block the Liberation Day import taxes, arguing that Trump does not have the authority to impose them under the 1977 law he cited, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

“It doesn’t seem to be an emergency,” said Jeff Schwab, senior counsel at Liberty Justice Center, the non-profit that is handling the case. He pointed out that the nation’s trade deficit, which Trump cites as the basis for declaring his “emergency,” has existed for decades. “I don’t think a trade deficit is unusual or extraordinary,” he said, citing the specific language in the law.

Disrupted supply chains caused shortages and spiking prices during the COVID pandemic as businesses the world over were hit with the ripples from a new, deadly disease. This time, though, the economic calamity is not a contagious virus, but an American president who does not appear to understand how international trade works but is nevertheless basing his decisions on his erroneous beliefs.

Trump has in recent days restated claims that countries that run a trade surplus with the United States are by definition “ripping us off,” that the European Union was created specifically to “screw” the United States and — most notably — that the tariffs he imposed on imports are somehow paid by the exporting nation.

In recent interviews and social media posts, Trump has claimed that the United States is collecting “billions” of dollars per day from his tariffs, and that this money is being collected from other countries.

Trump’s “billions” assertion is almost certainly vastly exaggerated. In any event, all American tariffs are collected by U.S. Customs as goods enter ports of entry and are paid by American importers. With few exceptions, these are wholesalers or manufacturers who then pass along those costs to consumers in the form of higher prices.