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Chances are that consumers will see higher prices and leaner selections on store shelves as an increase in tariffs which will disrupt the global supply chain, says Gurram Gopal, professor and chair of Illinois Tech Department of Information Technology and Management.

“If something doesn’t change, then you will see shortages probably in late summer,” Gopal says, based on his decades of supply chain research. “Will it be across every category? Probably not. But in certain ones because there’s not much inventory—sneakers, clothing, back-to-school items, toilet paper, those kinds of things.”

As a discipline, the supply chain is the network of the players—and the processes that they work with—that are involved in transforming raw materials into consumer products. This network grew to a global scale as nations developed specializations within it, facilitating a need to develop trade policy between countries.

“The thesis depends on understanding that not everybody can do everything,” Gopal says. “The second thing is trying to figure out an equitable way of exchanging. What tariffs do is they essentially change the equation for an equitable exchange.”

Trade agreements—which emerged as dominant economic policy after World War II—have provided the foundation for reliable supply chains to efficiently deliver goods to consumers at affordable costs. Tariffs will disrupt supply chains as companies decide how to continue to deliver goods at an affordable cost, while maximizing profits.

Gopal says companies will pass the tariff costs to consumers if they believe they will be short-lived, or if they are small. Other options include investing in manufacturing plants in the United States or finding new supply routes. He says that businesses will invest the time and money to build plants in the U.S. only if tariffs seem likely to stay for the long term.

He says it takes at least two years to move a manufacturing plant from one country to another. And even if plants come, Gopal says he doesn’t believe an influx of new jobs will follow.

“When I look at the developments in robotics and artificial intelligence, and I see what a lot of startups are doing, we are not going to be able to create those manufacturing jobs here,” he says. “Manufacturing takes very little labor today, especially electronics.”

Some household goods could become in short supply as businesses try to find new supply routes and are stocking less inventory.

Gopal says big box retailers have reduced inventories from three-month supplies to six-to-eight-week supplies to reduce inventory holding costs. Finding new supply routes will produce a temporary reduction in inventory, which could lead to storages on store shelves.

 “When we’ve had a big disruption, such as COVID-19, all of sudden we couldn’t get products in time and we saw empty shelves,” Gopal says. “In certain categories of goods, you will see shortages just because there is not that much supply and inventory on hand.”

Business managers have stated that they found it relatively easier to handle COVID-19-driven disruptions once the policies (especially regarding essential production and worker safety) were put in place. With the current tariff situation, business leaders are finding it more challenging to plan effectively as the tariff rules appear to change on a weekly, or sometimes daily, basis and they seem to appear on social media first.