Putin’s assault on Ukraine, and retaliatory steps designed to paralyze the Russian economy, are heaping new disruptions on supply chains that never recovered from unprecedented shocks caused by the pandemic.
After years of growing increasingly reliant on cheap and abundant wheat supplies from Russia and Ukraine, the world’s grains buyers are being forced to hunt elsewhere as flows from both countries dry up.
The supply squeeze on the U.S. economy tightened further in February, indicating no relief for domestic producers and pointing to persistent inflationary pressures.
The U.S. and Europe’s biggest logistics firms have halted shipments to Russia, further isolating the country’s businesses and consumers after its military invaded Ukraine.
First BP, then Shell. In just two days, Britain’s twin energy giants have dumped Russian investments nurtured over decades and shut themselves out of the world’s largest energy exporter, probably forever.
European leaders talking up plans to wean the continent off Russian natural gas are facing a harsh reality: energy companies are buying more as the war rages in Ukraine.
Omicron is ripping through cargo ships, raising concerns that a surge in cases, coupled with China’s tightened quarantine requirements for vessels, could delay supply chain stabilization for the shipping industry.
The $1.2 billion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed by Congress and signed into law by President Biden late last year has been heralded by some as the solution to the problem of how to repair and expand the nation’s crumbling and antiquated system of roads, rails, ports, airports and waterways. One can only hope.