When President Trump ordered military strikes last weekend against Houthi’s militia in Yemen, he said that the militia’s attacks on the Red Sea were harmed by world trade.
“These relentless attacks have cost the US and world economy many billions of dollars while at the same time endangering innocent lives,” he told Truth Social.
But the shipping companies mission to return to the Red Sea and the Suez channel could last for many months and is likely to demand more than the Houthis air raids. For more than a year, ocean carriers overwhelmingly avoided the Red Sea, sending ships around the south end of Africa to reach Asia to Europe, a trip that is about 3,500 nautical miles and 10 days longer.
The shipping industry has been largely adapted to the disorder and has even benefited from increasing shipping rates, as Hutheis began attacking merchant ships in late 2023 to support Hamas in his war with Israel.
Shipping executives say they do not plan to return to the Red Sea until there is a broad peace agreement in the Middle East that includes the Hautis or a decisive defeat of the militia, backed by Iran.
“It is either a complete degradation of their potential or there is some kind of agreement,” Vincent Clerc, Maersk’s chief executive, a shipping line in Copenhagen, said in February.
After the US hit this week, Maersk said he was not yet ready to return. “Priority in the safety of security and crew supply chain and predictability. We will continue to knit in Africa until safe crossing from the area is considered more permanent,” a spokesman said in a statement.
MSc, another large shipping line, said that “in order to ensure the safety of our seafarers and to ensure the consistency and predictability of services for our customers”, it will continue to send ships around Africa.
It is not clear how long the United States may take to decisively eliminate Houthis, or if this goal is still feasible. Mr. Alexus G. Grynkewich, manager of businesses for the public, said the latest attacks had “a much wider set of targets” than strikes during Biden’s administration. He also questioned Houthis’s capabilities.
However, Middle Eastern experts said that the Huts had shown that they could resist much larger forces and act independently of their Iranian patrons.
“Only a military solution, especially the one that focuses on air raids, is unlikely to be enough to beat Houthi, permanently stopping the attack activity,” said Jack Kennedy, head of the country’s risk for the Middle East and North Africa in S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Houthis has reduced their attacks on commercial shipping when Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire in January and there were no merchants attacks since December, according to data on the project of conflict and incidents of a crisis.
But the big shipping lines have not yet returned to the Red Sea in a big way.
In February, about 200 containers passed through the Bab El-Mandeb Strait, the opening south of the Red Sea, where Houthis have focused their attacks. This was up to 144 in February 2024, but well below the more than 500 before the Houthi attacks began, according to data from Lloyd’s List Intelligence, a mission analysis company.
The larger lines of shipping containers with the larger boats stayed away from the Red Sea, with the exception of CMA CGM, a French company, but even its presence was light. The company did not respond to requests for comments.
The ships did not rush in part because executives are afraid that they may have to make expensive and abrupt changes in their activities if the Red Sea became dangerous again.
The bypass around Africa, for all its suffering and additional costs, has boosted the profits of the shipping lines.
Companies had ordered hundreds of new loaders when they rinse in cash from explosion to global trade during the pandemic. Usually, a glut in boats pushes shipping rates below. But this was not the case this time, because the ships were forced to use the African route, which increased the need for ships and led rates to all major world shipping routes. Last month, Maersk predicts that its profits would probably be higher if the Red Sea opened at the end of this year and not in the middle.
Taking, the shipping rates from Asia to northern Europe have recently declined to their lowest level since 2023, according to Freightos data, a digital shipping market.
Percentages have been reduced because fewer goods are sent to the beginning of the year, said Rico Luman, a senior economist for transportation, logistics and automotive investigations in research. In addition, he said, a sudden explosion of imports to the United States in front of Mr Trump’s invoices seems to be almost over. And businesses may not order so many products because they expect that consumer demand will soften in the coming months.
