MW The end of freedom of the seas: Why global shipping may never be the same
By Jules Rimmer
Ripple effects of the Hormuz crisis are spreading out across the world's oceans
Although the U.S. has been trying to enforce a strict blockade in the Arabian Sea, some observers doubt the feasibility of sustaining this for a long period.
Ships still pass in the night, but not like they used to, and chances are they may never again pass each other with the same ease and regularity as they did before.
This stark warning was issued on the eve of Maritime Week conference in Singapore by Richard Meade. He is editor-in-chief for Lloyd's List, the most authoritative publication on shipping news, data and intelligence during a webinar hosted Monday by the Henry Jackson Society, a foreign policy thinktank. As he sees it, the crisis facing global shipping is a function of the breakdown of the post-World War II liberal international order.
Meade is an industry expert of some several decades' standing and he has sounded an alarm that the era of freedom of navigation of the seas, a prominent feature of globalization and something to which the worldwide economy has become so accustomed, may be a thing of the past. Regardless of how quickly, or slowly, if ever, the Iran war is brought to a conclusion, there will be no return to the status quo ante in the Strait of Hormuz.
Now that the vitally important strategic chokepoint has been blocked once, the key players in the region have witnessed its closure once and now know it can happen again.
According to tracking data only 279 ships transited the Strait of Hormuz between Feb 28 and April 12, compared to roughly 100 ships daily before the war began.
Meade was keen to emphasize, as other industry commentators like Carlyle Group's Jeff Currie have done, that the logistics of shipping commodities around the world's oceans is a complicated and detailed process and the "molecular contagion" that America's war against Iran has set in motion, cannot be so easily remedied.
Shipping routes, once established, are very difficult and time-consuming to redirect, Meade argued and now that there's a precedent for weaponizing bottlenecks in global trade, governments, cargo businesses and container companies are suddenly looking around at other potential areas of friction like the Straits of Malacca between Malay peninsula and the Indonesian archipelago, and the Bab el Mandeb Strait between Yemen and the Horn of Africa that could yet be obstructed during geopolitical turbulence.
Richard Meade, Editor-in-Chief for Lloyd's List
It's not just the physical hindrances that restrict commercial shipping activity. The sudden proliferation of tariffs since the advent of the Trump administration means that there are now many financial barriers to the free movement of goods across the world's oceans. Ships flagged in certain countries, Meade points out, are suddenly susceptible to export duties across different geographies.
This is why Meade forecasts that what's happened in Hormuz won't necessarily be confined to Hormuz and its effects will ripple out across the high seas. Dire straits at present emphasize the fragility of global supply chains, with extremely negative implications for inflation in a deglobalized world.
One other strait of crucial significance, the Formosa Strait between China and Taiwan, is now being scrutinized in detail as a result of what's happening in the Persian Gulf. Meade predicts that China will be observing events there for clues and scenario analysis as to how they might operate in the event of a blockade or invasion of Taiwan.
What's become apparent, Meade posits, is that control of the oceans through navies is no longer straightforward either. America, with all its naval might, does not look so omnipotent in an era when cheap Houthi drones can effectively close the Red Sea and Iranian mines and threats have the same effect on the strait.
Freedom of the seas, it transpires, is challenging to enforce. Meade was skeptical that the U.S. would be able to maintain a strict blockade of the strait for a sustained period.
The Breakwave Tanker Shipping ETF BWET has been the big beneficiary of shipping disruption, as the fund that trades in freight futures has skyrocketed 620% this year. The SonicShares Global Shipping ETF BOAT, which invests in companies including Frontline $(FRO)$, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (JP:9104) and SITC International (HK:1308), has gained 30%.
-Jules Rimmer
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 21, 2026 03:43 ET (07:43 GMT)
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