From the Associated Press — “DP World: Trade down broadly, no sign of recovery”

“DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Cargo handler DP World said Wednesday that business at its ports dropped 8 percent in the first two months of this year as global trade evaporates because of the global economic slump.

“The slowdown shows no sign of easing. The CEO of the Dubai-based company, one of the world’s biggest and most geographically diverse port operators, said market conditions are changing on an almost daily basis, making it impossible to predict how badly business might suffer this year.

“‘Volumes are just disappearing,’ Chief Executive Mohammed Sharaf said in a round-table with reporters. ‘It’s not that we are losing our business to our competition … It’s just not there. It’s gone.’”

There it is. Right from the horse’s mouth. He’s talking about container volumes … disappearing TEUs … lost business … “It’s just not there. It’s gone,” he said. And the slowdown shows no sign of easing, said the man who oversees more container transport than any man alive.

If Mr. Sharaf would just take the time to look down along the length of the supply chain, he’d see that the snag in the system is at the very end of that chain. The U.S. consumer. That’s what’s gone. That’s what’s not there. That’s what’s lost. That’s what’s disappeared.

It all starts and ends with the consumer. The one with the money … the one with buying power. That consumer supported the whole system of international trade, and more than any other, it was the U.S. consumer that had become the vital link in the global supply chain.

It’s no secret that Americans have been thwarted in their efforts to compete with lower paid overseas laborers, and the inevitable result was that U.S. retailers and merchants were forced to market products acquired from overseas manufacturers. U.S. shoppers welcomed these lower prices. In fact, they relished these lower prices. It was a luxury, everyone thought, but eventually the piper had to be paid. As demand for U.S.-made products diminished, so did the jobs that once produced those U.S.-made products. And so did the manufacturing facilities that provided those jobs.

So now the largest growing source of funds for U.S. “buyers” is the unemployment line. But those unemployment checks don’t allow for much wiggle room. And the merchants feel it. So do the overseas manufacturing facilities. So do the shipping lines. So does CEO Mohammed Sharaf, who finds it “impossible to predict how badly business might suffer this year”.

[President Obama — Please study our patented container ship design and revitalize our nation’s shipyards for the sake of the unemployed throughout the U.S. — and for the sake of all those who’ve enjoyed the recent, but short-lived, successes of global trade.]