Swag
Given the relatively short length of the conflict the US may not have had time to ramp up building tankers, railcars, etc..- while the war lasted a long time till Omega, the vast majority of it was after the TDM - meaning that the issues associated with building up may have just been starting to be felt when the nukes hit and ended much of US war and civilian production
Also keep in mind that much of the shipbuilding industry in the US by that time was gone as well as to civilian ships - tankers by then were almost exclusively products of South Korea and Japan
as for China - until the war start with the US and even afterward the Soviets wouldnt have been able to do much to stop Chinese steel from coming to the US - thats one part of the game that is definitely portrayed wrong - the US Pacific Fleet's advantage over the Soviets was so huge that basically they would have destroyed their fleet within months, possibly weeks -
and Chinese steel could have been one way they "paid" for all the equipment the US sent them before the war start with the Soviets in Europe
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