This moment feels to me like February 2020. If you were decently well-read, you knew that a global pandemic was coming to our shores in weeks, and the upheaval would change society. But not everybody was paying attention, so you had this special knowledge, a crystal ball into a hideous moment ahead. It was nerve-racking to know that everyone else wasn’t freaking out as much as you.

That’s how I feel about the supply chain right now.

I don’t care how well-stocked a company is; if they rely on finished goods or component parts from China, there will come a point pretty soon when they won’t have enough. West Coast ports are just about to feel the effects of this, because it takes around 30 days for container ships to make the journey from Asia to the U.S. Next week, ships entering the Port of Los Angeles will drop 35 percent compared to last year at this time, and a quarter of the ships scheduled for May are already canceled. The Port of Long Beach is down 38 percent this week. Chinese exporters are just stopping production, either looking for new markets or finding another business.

Tariffs of 145 percent on China, in short, are a trade embargo for many sectors. And China’s retaliatory measures are an embargo in the other direction.

In the near term, that means cratering business for longshoremen and truckers and warehouse workers. But there is this buildup of inventory that businesses can draw down. For several weeks, they can fend off the spectacle of empty shelves. But not forever.

Many businesses are trying to wait out the situation in case Trump blinks, announces new deals circumventing the tariffs, anything hopeful. Trump did that just yesterday, exempting imported auto components from tariffs. But he also dug in at a rally in Michigan, suggesting this won’t end anytime soon. (There’s apparently one trade deal done with an unnamed country. There are multiple countries out there!)