I listen to his podcast semi-regularly, and this just seems like a pretty slippery description of his views. It’s pretty obvious that he favors the United States taking a less aggressive stance toward China, for example in his views on the various protectionist measures that the United States has taken in the last ten years. He also seems to see more room for cooperation than anyone I would describe as a China hawk, and in this podcast he suggests that China could likely liberalize after Xi:
https://www.manifold1.com/episodes/molson-hart-china-and-amazon-up-close-60/transcript
I don’t think it’s an unreasonable take, but it’s not one that I would describe as “hawkish”.
If items are only available at “gouged” rates, then this will make them more expensive. That is, this tax will fall only on people in the emergency zone, and specifically those who are desperate enough to buy goods at these elevated costs. Since demand is very inelastic under these circumstances, the tax burden will fall almost entirely on the consumer.
Another approach might be to temporarily raise taxes everywhere except the emergency zone on these goods. For example, if bottled water falls under a temporary excise tax during a hurricane everywhere except the hurricane zone, that incentivizes sellers to bring bottled water to the hurricane victims.