(OPINION) We are about to find out what happens when thousands of very popular products are suddenly no longer available for sale. A lot of Amazon shoppers have been shocked to learn that some of their favorite products have already disappeared.

In fact, there are entire stores on Amazon that are now completely gone. Of course it isn’t just Amazon that is facing an unprecedented crisis. Walmart, Target, Home Depot and our largest dollar store chains are all going to have to figure out new ways to fill their shelves in the months ahead.

Those that wish to export products to the United States will soon have to pay enormous port fees on top of the tariffs that have already been announced.

For certain products coming from China, that will mean paying port fees on top of tariffs of up to 245 percent.

Some companies will still attempt to sell Chinese-made products in the United States, but they will be forced to hike their prices extremely high.

But in many other cases, companies will simply decide that it no longer makes economic sense to sell those products in the United States.

This will increase demand for similar goods that are produced right here in the United States.

Of course there are a lot of instances where there are no similar goods made in the United States.

And even if all of our factories were running at full capacity, there is just no way that we could hope to replace the tsunami of products that is normally imported from China.

Yes, we can build new factories, but that will take years.

It also comes with a lot of risk.

Less than four years from now, a new administration could come in and totally reverse current trade policy.

If Chinese goods started pouring back into our country at that point, what would happen to those that invested giant mountains of money into new U.S. factories?

I don’t think that we will see a huge wave of factory construction, because the risk of being wiped out when a new administration comes in is just too great.

I haven’t heard anyone else talk about this.

Businesses do not like to make huge investments unless there is certainty about the outcome.

While U.S. CEOs debate about what to do, our stores will not be able to fill their shelves with things that are made in the United States.

We simply are not able to produce enough stuff.

So if other nations stop sending us the things that we need, there will be shortages.

Last week, we learned that Chinese-built and Chinese-owned trade vessels will soon be hit with massive new port fees every time they make a voyage to the United States…

The Federal Register notice posted by the US Trade Representative (USTR) on Thursday said the US government will charge fees on all Chinese-built and -owned ships docking in US ports based on net tonnage or goods carried on each voyage.

The new fees will be enforced in around 180 days’ time, rolled out in a phased manner, and may be raised in coming years, according to the USTR notice.

The latest announcement backtracks from proposals floated in February to charge China-built ships of up to $1.5 million per port call, which had prompted a widespread industry backlash, Reuters reported.

So in addition to facing tariffs of up to 245 percent, a Chinese container ship that is carrying Chinese products across the Pacific could be hit with a port fee of up to 1.5 million dollars when it arrives.

This is going to absolutely kill trade with China.

Once these port fees go into effect, I don’t know why anyone would still want to ship products from China to the United States.

Of course these new port fees will have a tremendous chilling effect on trade with everyone else too, because Chinese-made vessels will soon “represent 98% of the trade ships on the world’s oceans”… READ MORE