Worst-Case Scenario: Firms wrestle with supply bottlenecks

Importers are contending with a perfect storm of supply trouble — rising prices, overwhelmed ports, a shortage of ships, trains, trucks — that is expected to last into 2022

WASHINGTON -- Toy maker Eric Poses created a card game last year he called The Worst-Case Scenario, a wry reference to the way the coronavirus had upended normal life. He had no idea. In a twist that Poses never could have predicted, his game itself would become caught up in the latest fallout from the health crisis: a backlogged global supply chain that has delayed shipments around the world and sent freight costs rocketing. Worst-Case Scenario, produced in China, was supposed to reach U.S. retailer Target’s distribution centers in early June. Instead, the games were stuck for weeks at the Port of Seattle and didn't arrive until mid-July.