CHICAGO (NewsNation) — Beijing, a city of 21 million people, will soon be under lockdown, bringing the total number of Chinese citizens under strict COVID restrictions to 400 million — more than America’s total population.
As a result, port activity in China is as low as during the original lockdown two years ago.
That’s already led to scarcity of some items, and will inevitably evolve into chronic shortages of hundreds of products later in 2022, analysts predict.
Michael Ruben, president and CEO of Florida’s Port Council, joined “On Balance with Leland Vittert” on Wednesday to discuss the harm China’s lockdown has already caused, as well as to predict how much worse the situation could potentially become.
“It’s really a bad version of ‘Groundhog Day’ without Bill Murray’s humor,” Ruben said. “It’s not just the ports. Those ships aren’t picking anything up and they won’t be picking anything up for a while,” he continued.
Check out the rest of the interview above.
