Dince November 19, 2023, the passage of merchant ships in the Bab Al-Mandab Strait, in the Red Sea, has been disrupted by attacks carried out by Houthis from Yemen. Shipowners have therefore announced significant price increases in this maritime zone, through which 12% of international trade passes each year.
Others have suspended their activities in the region, preferring to move away from the Suez Canal and take the route to southern Africa, via the Cape of Good Hope, thus extending the route of vessels to destination of Europe.
This sudden change is the most recent illustration of the lengthening of trade routes, but far from being the only one. Another crossroads of world trade is also congested: the passage of the Panama Canal for ships is slowed down by the consequences of the drought episode which affected the country in 2023. Only 24 crossings are now authorized daily, compared to 36 usually, the channel level being abnormally low.
However, 40% of American container traffic passes through the Panama Canal annually, representing nearly three-quarters of the canal’s total traffic. Smaller infrastructure users have also been affected, with disruptions reaching between 10% and 25% of trade flows from Nicaragua, Ecuador, Peru, El Salvador and Jamaica.
In Asia, growing tensions between China and the Philippines, in addition to those with Taiwan, since the Philippine president [Ferdinand Marcos Junior] elected in 2022 has moved closer to the United States, resulting in an increase in incidents in their common maritime zone. While a blockage of trade in the region remains unlikely at this stage, these tensions will be an important point of focus in 2024, with some 40% of China and Japan’s maritime trade passing through this route.
“Buffer” country
This lengthening of the routes of goods flows also directly concerns other major economies, as illustrated by the study of the bilateral flows of certain countries with China and the United States: Mexico, Vietnam and, to a lesser extent , Thailand and South Korea have both recorded strong growth in their trade surplus with the United States and a clear deterioration in their trade deficit with China in recent years. In other words, these four countries now import more from China, then re-export more to the United States.
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