Symbolic imageShipping disruption at Hormuz and in the Red Sea pushes firms to redesign supply chains
Dozens of ships are still crossing the Red Sea despite the Houthi blockade, but disruption is scattered and uncertainty over the passage is growing by the hour. At the same time, tanker crossings through the Strait of Hormuz have fallen to their lowest level in two months as the Iran war repeatedly interrupts commercial shipping. Companies and port operators are responding not by rerouting cargo but by rebuilding where goods are made, stored and moved.
What happened
Two chokepoints that carry a large share of seaborne energy and goods are being disrupted at the same time. In the Red Sea, dozens of ships continued to make the passage this week despite the Houthi blockade, according to the New York Times, which describes the disruption as scattered rather than total while uncertainty about the route grows by the hour. In the Strait of Hormuz, tanker crossings have fallen to their lowest level in two months, The National reports, after repeated interruptions to commercial shipping caused by the Iran war. Both outlets, writing from opposite ends of the affected corridor, converge on the same core point: traffic has not stopped, but reliability has. The commercial response is already visible. DP World, the Dubai-based ports operator, is planning a new port on the east coast of the United Arab Emirates that would create an alternative route bypassing the Strait of Hormuz. The National also reports that Washington announced tariffs on 60 countries this week and has escalated US strikes on Iranian targets in recent days. In the pharmaceutical sector, the paper reports, some firms scrambled to secure alternative medical supplies and raw materials as costs rose and inventories were depleted, while companies that had already spread inventory and production across several countries absorbed the shock more easily.
The camps
Neither available source carries direct statements from the parties to the conflict, so their positions appear here only through reported actions. The Houthi movement is maintaining a blockade of the Red Sea passage that ships are nonetheless still transiting. The United States, according to The National, has escalated strikes on Iranian targets in recent days and simultaneously widened trade barriers with tariffs on 60 countries, which the paper reads as pushing Washington and Tehran closer to all-out conflict. No Iranian, Yemeni or US comment is contained in the reporting available, and the characterisation of the escalation is The National's own. A UN video item embedded in the same article is captioned with the UN Secretary-General describing the Middle East situation as on the edge of the unimaginable.
The view from outside
The sharpest framing comes from the Gulf itself. The National, a UAE state-affiliated outlet, argues that the disruption has punctured the narrative that the Gulf would be a winner from the reordering of global supply chains: until recently the UAE and Saudi Arabia were attracting growing interest as manufacturing and assembly hubs, and the strait's repeated closure has undercut that case. The paper's central claim is that trade barriers and route risk are becoming a persistent feature of the global economy rather than a temporary disruption, following the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the return of broad US import tariffs. Its conclusion for companies is that rerouting cargo is not enough and the supply network itself has to be revamped — it cites Lego, which spent the past decade expanding manufacturing across Europe, Asia and North America, as an example of production placed closer to end markets.
What's new
The story has moved from price to structure. In recent days the focus was on Brent crude closing above $100 for the first time since late May, after Houthi attacks on two Saudi oil vessels turned the Red Sea into a second disrupted chokepoint alongside Hormuz. What is new is the corporate and infrastructure response: DP World's plan for an east-coast port that avoids the strait, Hormuz crossings at a two-month low, and the US tariff announcement covering 60 countries landing in the same week. The Red Sea passage, meanwhile, is being described as continuing but unpredictable rather than closed.
What could happen next
If disruption at both chokepoints persists, more operators may follow DP World in building physical alternatives that bypass Hormuz, though The National stresses that factories and production networks take years or decades to rewire, so the effect would arrive slowly. Traffic through the Red Sea could continue at reduced and uneven volumes, leaving shippers to price uncertainty rather than absence of passage, with costs and inventory build-up concentrated in sectors such as pharmaceuticals that were already exposed. A further escalation between Washington and Tehran, which The National says recent strikes have brought closer, would test whether the partial flows still moving through either strait can be sustained at all.
Houthi movement: Maintains a blockade of the Red Sea passage that ships are still crossing under scattered disruption.
Iran: Party to the war that has repeatedly interrupted commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz; no statement in the available sources.
United States: Has escalated strikes on Iranian targets and announced tariffs on 60 countries, according to The National.
Also involved