A quick summary might be “booming with bottlenecks.”And some of those bottlenecks reflect the mess created by Donald Trump’s trade policy. Where we are now: Employment is growing at a rate we haven’t seen since 1984. So, probably, is gross domestic product, although we don’t yet have an official estimate for the second quarter. We are, however, suffering from shortages of many items, which are crimping production in some areas and leading to sharp price increases in others. And there’s another bottleneck that may be an even bigger deal than the container shortage: a global shortage of semiconductor chips.

Source: International New York Times July 08, 2021 22:52 UTC