Cyril Widdershoven
The market will panic when the Strait of Hormuz closes. When it reopens, policymakers will all feel relieved. At present, we are all witnessing this in real time, but reality is definitely the opposite. The latest data coming out in April 2026 should put an end to that illusion. Even after repeated announcements by Iran and the USA that Hormuz was “open,” real-time, actual maritime traffic only shows evidence of a near collapse. Markets are still struggling to get to grips with the fact that, during the opening of Hormuz, vessel traffic levels are still extremely low, sometimes as low as three vessels per day, compared to well over 120–140 in normal conditions. The lesson to be taken into account is no longer theoretical. The reopening of a chokepoint, such as Hormuz or Bab El Mandab, does not restore a system. It merely exposes how deeply it has already been broken.
Markets and policymakers should look at the precedent already set in the Bab El-Mandeb and the Suez Canal. Despite intermittent stabilization efforts, traffic through the Red Sea corridor remains structurally depressed, even after years of reopening, with Suez throughput still far below pre-crisis levels. It has become clear that incentives such as transit fee discounts are widely failing to bring vessels back. The Houthis did not need to close the corridor permanently; they needed to make it all unreliable. That alone was enough to rewire global shipping behavior.
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