🇺🇸🇮🇷 The last time shipping broke this badly the Suez Canal stayed shut for EIGHT YEARS, and insurers now price Hormuz like a war zone from the 1980s
Everyone's watching the deal.
Sal Mercogliano, maritime historian and the voice behind What is Going on With Shipping, explains why the deal may not matter.
War-risk insurance through Hormuz is running at levels the world hasn't paid since the Tanker War, and in his words "shipping is kind of like a fainting goat": it locks up first and asks questions later.
His warning cuts deep, because when the Houthis stopped shooting after the Gaza ceasefire, the ships never came back, and he expects the same hesitation no matter what gets signed this week.
Then it widens.
Why a single tanker run to the Black Sea now costs triple what the biggest ship on earth charges.
How China quietly refilled its reserves during the pause while Japan drained its own dry.
The real mechanism behind Beijing's quiet win at the Panama Canal.
And the shortage he says nobody is tracking, the one that ends with gaps on American grocery shelves within a year.
The war taught every shipper on earth one lesson: the ocean is no longer safe by default.
Unlearning that will take far longer than any signing ceremony.
@mercoglianos @WeTheBrandon
