This Is What Happens When Globalization Breaks Down

“Please let me know if there’s anything we can do to expedite the process,” he continued. “And I truly mean we. I appreciate your help.”

Mr. Walker figured that Mr. Horan was besieged by angry shippers issuing rude threats, and he bet on the power of polite discourse. He allowed himself to imagine that a truck might be secured to haul his container perhaps as far as Memphis or Dallas. Then, he would scramble to line up transport for the rest of the journey.

He was astonished by the email he received only 21 minutes later.

“Hi Hagan,” Mr. Horan replied. “I have a truck picking up tomorrow from Los Angeles and will deliver to you on Tuesday 11/9.” This, for an extra cost of $1,100.

“Yes!” Mr. Walker wrote back immediately. “Let’s do it!”

Just before 8 a.m. on Nov. 9, Mr. Walker arrived at his warehouse, a failed furniture showroom on the outskirts of Starkville. The tractor-trailer was already there, backed up to the loading dock. The driver was resting inside the cab after his four-day, 1,900-mile drive.

As the driver lifted his rear gate, Mr. Walker peered in excitedly. There sat 1,595 brown cartons atop 24 pallets.

Mr. Walker and three employees wielded electric pallet jacks to move the goods into the warehouse. An hour later, a Glo truck began collecting some of the cargo to take it to the old movie theater downtown, where employees began preparing shipments for customers across the United States and around the world — in Belgium, Dubai, Singapore.

Watching this process unfold, Mr. Walker felt an overwhelming sense of relief.

But before the day was done, anxiety had returned. Given what he had endured, he was already looking ahead to the 2022 Christmas season, readying ever larger orders as a hedge against new troubles emerging somewhere on the pathway between China and Mississippi.

“It’s the whole cycle all over again,” he said.