Scared Yet? Wait For The Chinese Supply-Chain Hammer

One of these things is not like the other. The stock market is tumbling, a pandemic is at the door, and citizens are hoarding toilet paper. 

The outlier, of course, is the pandemic. People know what a stock market readjustment is, they use toilet paper every day. But they haven’t a clue what a pandemic looks like. 

Although that is changing as the Covid-19 virus laps the shores of North America. We are now entering a period where, from an abundance of caution, society is going to put the car in neutral until the virus passes— hopefully without the effects seen in Italy and other hotspots for the virus. Say goodbye to concerts, sports events, conferences etc. for the foreseeable future. So be it.

One revelation that will not pass, however, is just how vulnerable North America’s indulged society is to events in China. The virus, which originated in Wuhan, has become the unwanted party guest who won’t leave till he’s soiled the carpets and broken the furniture as he does air guitar. 

But it’s also informed Americans and Canadians that almost all their prescription drugs and a host of other products come exclusively from China. Or near enough. So those high-blood-pressure pills we gobble— especially the generic brands— are 95 percent dependent on Chinese labs after successive governments in North America allowed the business to migrate eastward. And supplies are dwindling.

Name the drug, and you’ll find the same dependency on almost all of them. Heperin, used as a blood thinner, is made from pig intestines. The ingredient source for most of this drug is from China. And so on. The supply chain for many drugs starts in China, and, with its own Covid-19 problems, the Chinese have told North America it’s not a priority for them.

This dependence has been around for some time now, waiting to emerge. It just took the Covid-19 emergency to make citizens aware. You certainly didn’t hear it it discussed in media circles when the new North American trade deal was being discussed. Why? In part because U.S. president Donald Trump is trying to use the deal to return supply chains to our continent. 

While the fashionable folk at The New Yorker and Toronto Star scoffed, Trump wanted to reduce the continent’s vulnerability to Chinese domination of supplies on everything from drugs to phones to weird plastic novelties by making them in NA again. We can see why now. But Canada’s PM Justin Trudeau is too busy currying favour with the geopolitical swells to watch out for his nation’s vulnerability. Like ceding our sovereignty on energy to the Saudis or Americans, it was getting in the way of him winning a seat on the UN Security Council in his priorities. 

And because returning the supply chain to NA was a Trump idea it had to be dismissed as out-of-date and implausible. Any admission by the Media Party and its political friends that Trump might be on to something is heresy. Until they can’t instantly get their testing kits for a virus. Then it’s Trump’s fault.

Here, two U.S. senators make the case for supply-chain independence.

Trump may be the least of the Media Party’s worries soon in the United States. The collapse of another Bernie Sanders forlorn hope attack on the establishment— largely though his unwillingness to change his stump speech from 1968— means that an even more formidable threat lurks. Leadership on the left of the Democratic Party now passes to Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, the firebrand congresswoman and leader of the Squad (Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts).

While many dismiss her as a lightweight, within the Democratic Party she polls higher than anyone but the Obamas— Barack and Michelle. Whatever one thinks of her excitable Ché Guevara agenda for America she represents their future on post-racial, post-capitalist, post-reason policy. Even if Sanders bends a knee to the Party (as he did in 2016), getting AOC into the tent in time for November will be a very different proposition. 

One need only look at how she has forced the Democrats Iron Lady, Nancy Pelosi, into a series of radical policies on immigration, health, Civil War reparations and, disastrously, impeachment. As befits a zealot, AOC does not wilt in the face of overwhelming odds. Assuming Hidin’ Biden makes it through the DNC convention in August, what price will she extract for her support? And is it a poison chalice to hand Biden as he goes up against the brute force of Trump?

There have rarely been any moments since WW II with so many moving parts. Trump’s electability, Trudeau's crumbling credibility and the fate of the isolated EU all ride on the toxicity of Covid-19. To say nothing of the Saudis’ stealth attack on oil prices and how it could unhinge Russia, Iran, Venezuela and other petro states. Buckle up. It's going to be a bumpy ride.

Footnote: Since we brought up pandemics, here’s the Wiki definition: A pandemic is an epidemic occurring on a scale which crosses international boundaries, usually affecting a large number of people. A relatively mild illness can be still be a pandemic. By contrast, an endemic disease is isolated to a particular area, and an epidemic is a sudden increase in the number of cases in that area.)

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the publisher of  Not The Public Broadcaster. He’s also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he is also a best-selling author whose new book Cap In Hand: How Salary Caps Are Killing Pro Sports And Why The Free Market Could Save Them is now available on brucedowbigginbooks.ca.