On July 9, the fragile ceasefire between the United States and Iran collapsed. The U.S. carried out a second straight day of strikes on Iranian targets, including port and transport infrastructure, after President Trump said the ceasefire deal was “over.” The effect showed up immediately in the water: according to ship-tracking data from Veson Nautical, only 14 vessels transited the Strait of Hormuz that Thursday, down from 35 the day before. The Omani corridor that carriers had been using as a safer route sat essentially empty.<\/p>\n
The Strait of Hormuz isn’t just an oil chokepoint \u2014 it’s a route container ships and feeder vessels depend on to move consumer goods through Gulf ports like Jebel Ali, Dammam, and Bandar Abbas. When transits stall, so does everything downstream: container availability, port congestion, and eventually what carriers charge to move a box.<\/p>\n
If you order from US retailers and ship to the Gulf, you won’t see “Strait of Hormuz” on a tracking page \u2014 but you’ll feel it in cost and speed.<\/p>\n
What makes the timing notable is that shipping costs to the Gulf had actually started to ease. DHL Express suspended its Elevated Risk Surcharge on shipments to and from Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE on June 26, a sign the market believed the worst had passed. Two weeks later, the ceasefire broke down and Hormuz traffic collapsed again. Whether DHL and other carriers reinstate their surcharges, or whether UPS and FedEx raise theirs further, depends on how the next few weeks unfold. But the pattern over the past several months has been consistent: surcharges rise fast when tensions spike, and come down slowly and cautiously when they don’t.<\/p>\n
None of this means you should stop shopping US stores. It means it pays to be deliberate about how and when you ship.<\/p>\n
The situation at the Strait of Hormuz is still moving day to day, and no one can promise where surcharges land next month. But the shoppers and resellers who come out ahead won’t be the ones reacting to every headline. They’ll be the ones who built a little slack into how they ship. If you’re placing US orders regularly, now’s a good time to look at consolidating them rather than shipping each one as it arrives.<\/p>\n
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