A week into the conflict, the impact on global trade is already significant, with major disruptions to shipping and air traffic reverberating through markets and pushing up prices for gasoline and fertilizer. More upheaval is likely, as the effects of attacks and shutdowns at some of the world\u2019s busiest logistics hubs trickle through the global trade system.<\/p>\n
The United Arab Emirates and Qatar are focal points for maritime and air freight, handling large volumes of goods in transshipment between Asia, Europe and Africa through ports, free zones and small cities of warehouses around the airports. Close to Dubai\u2019s airport, which in normal times handles more than 1,000 flights per day, is the International Humanitarian City, a free zone for international aid supplies, and hubs for the World Health Organization and other agencies.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s quite unique because it\u2019s hitting a maritime chokepoint, but also an intermodal transport hub,\u201d said Sarah Schiffling, assistant professor of supply chain management and social responsibility at the Hanken School of Economics in Finland. \u201cThe problem with a hub and spoke system is that if something disrupts your hub, the whole network is disrupted.\u201d<\/p>\n
By Wednesday, more than 27,000 scheduled flights had been canceled across the region, leaving passengers and cargo stranded \u2014 although airlines, including Emirates, are resuming operations.<\/p>\n
A substantial proportion of all air freight travels as belly cargo in passenger planes, and while total volumes are far smaller than shipping, planes typically carry high-value goods, perishable items that can\u2019t always survive being stuck in transit such as food, flowers and pharmaceuticals, and other time-critical products. The collapse of passenger air traffic during the Covid-19 pandemic reduced the amount of capacity, leading to spikes in the price of air freight.<\/p>\n
The most visible market impact of the conflict has been on the price of energy. Around 20% of the world\u2019s supply of oil and liquefied natural gas flows through the Strait of Hormuz. Oil and gas production facilities across the region have been hit by drone and missile strikes. Energy exporters are looking for alternative routes out of the Gulf, and several have shut down refineries as storage facilities fill up.<\/p>\n
Brent crude hit $90 a barrel for the first time in two years on March 6, while LNG prices topped three-year highs during the week. If the conflict goes on for much longer \u2014 and US President Donald Trump said Friday that he would accept nothing short of \u201cunconditional surrender\u201d \u2014 then some analysts are predicting the price could go above $100.<\/p>\n
Concerns about the impact of higher prices on the world economy have roiled markets, and raised prices at the pump in the US, leaving the administration searching for ways to deal with the domestic blowback.<\/p>\n
Higher energy prices will feed into higher costs for consumers and industries \u2014 particularly agriculture. Around a third of global fertilizer trade passes through the Strait of Hormuz, while natural gas is crucial to the manufacture of inputs used by farmers globally.<\/p>\n
Fertilizer producers worldwide have cut production, and prices have already risen. Farmers have rushed to secure supplies ahead of critical growing seasons.<\/p>\n
A prolonged conflict could have severe impacts, as producers cut back on their fertilizer use, reducing yields. That would be acutely felt in less wealthy countries, where shortages could lead to humanitarian disasters, according to Tim Benton, professor at Leeds University in the UK and an expert in food security. If shortages lead to farmers not using fertilizers ahead of the next growing season, \u201cthen you could be in a situation where the impacts on crop production in six months\u2019 time in the southern growing season next year could be very marked,\u201d Benton said.<\/p>\n
Analysts told Bloomberg that no matter how much longer the war continues, the impacts will be profound and long-lasting, with hard-to-foresee consequences. Rising energy costs in Asia, which is the destination for much of the Gulf\u2019s energy exports, could feed back into consumer goods prices in Europe; delays to ships could increase inventory costs or disrupt manufacturing.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour own company might not be affected but your supplier\u2019s supplier\u2019s supplier might be,\u201d Schiffling said. \u201cDisruptions are going to ripple globally because supply chains are global.\u201d<\/p>\n
–With assistance from Agnieszka de Sousa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A week into the conflict, the impact on global trade is already significant, with major disruptions to shipping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[4509,5086,177,5084,34,39,201,5085,69,36],"class_list":{"0":"post-7977","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-persian-gulf","8":"tag-2026-iran-conflict","9":"tag-air-attack","10":"tag-conflict","11":"tag-horizontal","12":"tag-iran","13":"tag-persian-gulf","14":"tag-photography","15":"tag-smoke","16":"tag-tehran","17":"tag-war"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116187534729629982","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}