‘Crisis even bigger than Covid’: American business owners are barely getting by

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Jeff Vojta can’t catch a break.

The CEO of Dilworth Coffee in Raleigh, North Carolina, contended with a miserable Brazilian coffee crop in 2024 that vaulted coffee futures to record highs. The next year, President Donald Trump’s global tariffs raised coffee prices even higher.

Then, this year, the Iran war started. And a Super El Niño.

“Between shipping disruptions, the lack of containers, high costs because of what’s going on in the Red Sea and higher fertilizer costs, we have this period of disruption that we’ve never encountered before,” said Vojta, who founded the national coffee distributor more than three decades ago. “There’s just so much uncertainty.”

Courtesy Dilworth Coffee

Around the country, American business owners across myriad industries say they’re in a similar boat. A closely watched monthly survey from the Institute for Supply Management raised eyebrows earlier this month after several business leaders compared the current business climate to the pandemic.

They said Covid was better.

Massive disruptions and price instability are forcing businesses to make impossible decisions. They have no idea how to plan, and their inflation-wary customers are in no mood for more price hikes.

“This is a bigger problem than Covid, for sure,” said Jack Buffington, director of the supply chain program at the University of Denver. “This is completely different. This is an energy problem.”

The Trump administration has tried to frame the Iran war as a temporary economic blip — and once resolved, rebounding inflation will quickly reverse itself. But the historic supply chain struggles that America’s business owners face show why resurgent inflation will not be easily resolved – even if the war miraculously ended tomorrow.

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“Oil prices will drop precipitously” when the war with Iran is won, Trump said in a Truth Social post on Labor Day. “It will all happen quickly.”

There’s precedent for that. In mid-June, when the Strait of Hormuz briefly reopened after the United States and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding, gas prices fell below $4 a gallon and oil sank below pre-war levels.

“Of course, gas prices are too high,” Speaker Mike Johnson said in a press briefing on Wednesday. “When we get that thing resolved in the Strait of Hormuz, that will have a direct effect on that, and it will help to bring down grocery costs.”

But much has changed since June. High fuel and shipping prices have started to bleed out into other parts of the economy. Core inflation , which strips out volatile energy and food prices, rose last month by the highest amount since April. And it’s showing up in higher prices of services — costs that typically don’t come down after they go up.

Diesel prices have doubled since March because of the intensifying war in the Middle East and Ukraine’s continued bombardment of Russian refineries.

But shipping costs have also risen because of an increasing number of weather disruptions — including back-to-back typhoons that effectively closed the port of Shanghai, the world’s largest container port, for two weeks and continue to cause significant delays.

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Ending the war in Iran — itself an enormously tall task — will do nothing to end Russia’s diesel export ban, which blocked off 12% of the world’s seaborne diesel supply. It can’t improve the weather.

And it won’t reverse the resurgence of the Iran-allied Houthi rebels in the Red Sea and Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden. Both impediments have forced shipping companies to reroute their ships around the entire African continent to avoid attacks — reducing the amount of global shipping capacity by 15% this year, said Ryan Petersen, CEO of Flexport, a logistics and supply chain software platform.

“I’ve been in logistics for 25 years, and I’ve never seen anything as bad as this,” he said.

Meanwhile, businesses are at the breaking point, said Sean Brownlee, CEO of rope, cord and leash manufacturer Ravenox.

Courtesy Sean Brownlee

“Small businesses will absorb as much cost as they can until the very last minute,” Brownlee said. “Now we’re feeling acute pressure.”

Brownlee got into the business after a 25-year career in the US Marine Corps to create a US manufacturing company that supports American jobs. Now, the unpredictable environment is threatening his dream.

“This issue really hits home,” Brownlee said of expensive supply chain disruptions. “We just want predictability.”

It was alarming when an ISM survey respondent argued the current supply chain situation is a “crisis even bigger and more complicated than during and post Covid.”

In 2020, container ships were stuck for weeks trying to enter ports. Stores couldn’t keep toilet paper, masks or hand sanitizer on shelves. The supply chain effectively came to a halt before it gradually started back up again.

Today’s supply chain problems are altogether different: Shipping starts, stops, gets worse, gets much better, and then much worse again. Prices go up, down, and shoot higher again.

Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images North America/Getty Images

“The supply chain works, but with much more cost, friction and uncertainty than during Covid,” said Brownlee.

That extreme volatility spells chaos for business leaders.

“Covid was very scary,” said Vojta. “This is more stressful. We have this period of disruption that we’ve never encountered before.”

Vojta said his small team at Dilworth has to conduct significantly more research and price modeling than in the past. The company is accustomed to settling on its coffee sources 12 to 24 months ahead of time. Now it’s sourcing just three to six months out.

Victor Moriyama/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Weather has played a significant factor. This year’s Super El Niño has raised questions about the Vietnamese and Brazilian coffee crops.

But so has the company’s limited cash on hand. It can’t stock as much coffee as it used to because shipping costs are through the roof. Margins are thinner. And customers don’t have the disposable incomes they had during the post-pandemic years.

Normally, Vojta’s sales volumes fluctuate by 5% a month. Now they’re up or down as much as 20%.

“This dynamic situation is new to us: How long is diesel going to be over $6? How are we going to pass this along to customers?” said Vojta. “It’s challenging — our customers are dealing with the same things we are.”

Patrick T. Fallon/法新社/盖蒂图片社

杰夫·沃伊塔真是祸不单行。

位于北卡罗来纳州罗利市的迪尔沃斯咖啡公司首席执行官表示，2024年巴西咖啡歉收，导致咖啡期货价格飙升至历史新高。次年，唐纳德·特朗普总统的全球关税政策进一步推高了咖啡价格。

今年，伊朗战争爆发，同时还出现了超级厄尔尼诺现象。

“航运中断、集装箱短缺、红海局势导致成本高企以及化肥价格上涨，这些因素叠加在一起，使我们陷入了前所未有的混乱时期，”沃伊塔说道。他于三十多年前创立了这家全国性的咖啡分销商。“现在充满了太多的不确定性。”

迪尔沃斯咖啡公司友情提供

全美各地，各行各业的美国企业主都表示他们面临着类似的困境。本月初，供应管理协会一项备受关注的月度调查引发了广泛关注，因为几位商界领袖将当前的商业环境与新冠疫情相提并论。

他们说新冠疫情更好。

大规模的市场动荡和价格波动迫使企业做出艰难的抉择。他们不知如何制定计划，而对通胀忧心忡忡的消费者也绝不愿承受进一步的价格上涨。

“这肯定比新冠疫情更严重，”丹佛大学供应链项目主任杰克·巴芬顿说。“这完全不同。这是一个能源问题。”

特朗普政府试图将伊朗战争描绘成一场暂时的经济波动——一旦战争结束，反弹的通胀就会迅速逆转。但美国企业主面临的史无前例的供应链困境表明，即便战争明天奇迹般地结束，通胀反弹也绝非易事。

艾莉森·乔伊斯/彭博社/盖蒂图片社

特朗普在劳动节当天通过Truth Social网站发帖称，一旦伊朗战争胜利，“油价将暴跌”。“这一切都会很快发生。”

这并非没有先例。6月中旬，美国和伊朗签署谅解备忘录后，霍尔木兹海峡短暂重新开放，汽油价格跌破每加仑4美元，石油价格跌至战前水平以下。

“当然，汽油价格太高了，”众议院议长迈克·约翰逊周三在新闻发布会上说。“一旦我们解决了霍尔木兹海峡的问题，这将直接影响汽油价格，并有助于降低食品杂货价格。”

但自六月以来，情况已发生很大变化。高企的燃油和运输价格开始蔓延至经济的其他领域。剔除波动较大的能源和食品价格后的核心通胀率上月创下四月以来的最高水平。而这正体现在服务价格的上涨上——这些成本通常在上涨之后不会回落。

由于中东战事升级以及乌克兰持续轰炸俄罗斯炼油厂，柴油价格自3月份以来翻了一番。

但由于天气灾害频发，运输成本也随之上升——其中包括接连不断的台风，导致世界最大的集装箱港口上海港关闭了两周，并且持续造成严重的延误。

Ying Tang/NurPhoto/Getty Images

Brandon Bell/Getty Images

结束伊朗战争——这本身就是一项极其艰巨的任务——对解除俄罗斯的柴油出口禁令毫无帮助，该禁令切断了全球12%的海运柴油供应。它也无法改善天气。

而且，这并不能扭转伊朗支持的胡塞武装在红海和索马里海盗在亚丁湾的死灰复燃。物流和供应链软件平台Flexport的首席执行官瑞安·彼得森表示，这两大障碍迫使航运公司绕道整个非洲大陆，以避开袭击，导致今年全球航运能力下降了15%。

“我从事物流行业25年了，从未见过如此糟糕的情况，”他说。

绳索、线绳和牵引绳制造商 Ravenox 的首席执行官 Sean Brownlee 表示，与此同时，企业正处于崩溃的边缘。

承蒙肖恩·布朗利惠允

布朗利说：“小企业会尽可能地承担成本，直到最后一刻。现在我们正感受到巨大的压力。”

布朗利在美军海军陆战队服役25年后投身商界，致力于创建一家能够支持美国就业的美国制造企业。如今，变幻莫测的商业环境正威胁着他的梦想。

布朗利谈到代价高昂的供应链中断时说：“这个问题确实让我们感同身受。我们只是想要可预测性。”

一位ISM调查受访者认为，当前的供应链状况是一场“比新冠疫情期间和之后更大、更复杂的危机”，这令人担忧。

2020年，集装箱船被困数周，无法进入港口。商店货架上卫生纸、口罩和洗手液等物资供不应求。供应链实际上陷入停滞，之后才逐渐恢复。

如今的供应链问题截然不同：运输时断时续，时而恶化，时而好转，然后再次急剧恶化。价格也时而上涨，时而下跌，然后再次飙升。

Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images North America/Getty Images

布朗利表示：“供应链仍在运转，但与新冠疫情期间相比，成本、摩擦和不确定性都大大增加。”

这种极端波动性会给企业领导者带来混乱。

沃伊塔说：“新冠疫情非常可怕，但这次疫情压力更大。我们正经历着前所未有的动荡时期。”

沃伊塔表示，他所在的迪尔沃斯小团队现在需要进行比以往多得多的研究和价格建模工作。该公司过去习惯于提前12到24个月确定咖啡供应商，而现在只需提前3到6个月进行采购。

Victor Moriyama/Bloomberg/Getty Images

天气因素发挥了重要作用。今年的超级厄尔尼诺现象引发了人们对越南和巴西咖啡作物收成的担忧。

但公司有限的现金储备也带来了同样的问题。由于运费高昂，公司无法像以前那样储备那么多咖啡。利润空间也更小了。而且，顾客的可支配收入也不如疫情后时期那么充裕了。

通常情况下，沃伊塔的销量每月波动幅度为5%。现在，销量波动幅度高达20%。

“这种动态变化对我们来说是全新的：柴油价格会持续高于每加仑6美元多久？我们该如何把这些成本转嫁给客户？”沃伊塔说道。“这很有挑战性——我们的客户也面临着同样的问题。”