Leibowitz on trade: Have consumers gotten lost in the mayhem?

I participated in the 35^th annual Tampa Steel Conference last week, a conclave of steel producers, consumers, traders, logisticians, and (a few) trade lawyers. I participated in a panel discussion concerning challenges in managing supply chains in these troubled times.

Things appear to be heading in the wrong direction in this field. Supply chains were shown to be vulnerable to pandemics in 2020 and 2021, and, in 2022 and 2023, to regional conflicts and weather slowing or stopping the free movement of goods through trade bottlenecks (the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal, the Bosporus, etc.). These hurt consumers of goods—not just final consumers, but industrial consumers, who depend on global trade for manufacturing. That hurts manufacturing output and jobs in the sector, as well as agriculture and services.