[Athos]

Shortly after the inauguration, Trump started a trade war that actually increased the trade deficit.

By the end of 2018, almost 2,000 American manufacturing plants had been lost and about 300,000 jobs as businesses closed or moved overseas. American farmers went bankrupt as Russia supplanted the US as the chief importer of soy into China.

The tariffs increased the cost of vital manufacturing components which led to heightened inflation. A carryover effect of that has been that the domestic manufacturers that didn’t close reduced their inventory of such components in hopes that the tariffs would end and their costs would decrease, and this is a contributing factor to the product shortages we have now.

[Wondergirl]

How has reduced manufacturing/inventory due to Covid figured into product shortages?

[Athos]

How has reduced manufacturing/inventory due to Covid figured into product shortages?

The Obama administration left a robust pandemic response team in place, but Trump was completely disinterested in understanding the threat posed by a potential viral outbreak, and instead immediately started dismantling the team.

The rest is history including Covid and product shortages.

[jlisenbe]

The rest is history including Covid and product shortages.

When did "history" and "fantasy" become synonyms?

[tomder55]

Shortly after the inauguration, Trump started a trade war that actually increased the trade deficit.

By the end of 2018, almost 2,000 American manufacturing plants had been lost and about 300,000 jobs as businesses closed or moved overseas. American farmers went bankrupt as Russia supplanted the US as the chief importer of soy into China.

That is all a correct observation,

I commented on the tariffs in 2018

herr Donald Herbert Hoover Smoot Hawley Trump (askmehelpdesk.com)

how has reduced manufacturing/inventory due to Covid figured into product shortages?

much more than any 2018 tariff.

Covid policy was a self inflicted wound. Lock down businesses ;lock down people ;infuse monopoly money to subsidize their bad policies .

When lockdowns ended there was pent up demand . Excess Savings rates ; people wanted to go out and spend . But there was no product to be had . It is a basic definition of inflation...... too much money chasing too few goods . On top of that ;China remained locked down until recently ;and even if there were goods to be had ;covid policies created a transportation grid lock .... especially at the ports of entry .