Bab-el-Mandeb: the strait that sets the container price

Red Sea traffic hovers around 45 to 55 % of its pre-2023 level. The Cape of Good Hope detour adds ten to fourteen days on average and a million dollars of fuel per voyage. Maersk, MSC, CMA CGM have internalized the situation as a permanent regime rather than a crisis.

The Prosperity Guardian coalition (US) and the European Aspides operation have delivered an effect: fewer successful strikes, not fewer attempts. The Houthis have not lost the capacity to threaten ; they have only lost part of the capacity to hit. The distinction matters for the maritime risk premium, which remains historically high.

The second-order effect is European. Northern European ports (Rotterdam, Antwerp, Hamburg) absorb the delays ; Mediterranean ports (Marseille-Fos, Genoa, Piraeus) lose transit. Logistics inflation compounds with energy inflation, feeding shipping company margins more than exporters'.

Institute reading. Bab-el-Mandeb illustrates a rarely taught rule : a regional non-state actor can, with a few hundred missiles and drones, redraw global commercial geography. The US-European response has been confined to the military component. The political component (Sanaa negotiations, partial sanctions relief against non-action commitments) remains taboo. As long as it does, the surcharge will be structural, not cyclical.