The Strait of Hormuz has never formally closed. It doesn’t need to. Here is what is already happening — and why the ripples reach your table.
Most people think war is about soldiers, borders, and flags, but they’re mistaken. There is more to war than symbols.
War reshapes economies and empties shelves. It is about chokepoints. Right now, the world’s most important chokepoint is under siege.
It is called the Strait of Hormuz. It is 21 nautical miles wide at its narrowest point, threading between Iran and Oman, connecting the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea beyond. In peacetime, it is the world’s busiest energy corridor. Right now, it is the single most consequential flashpoint in the global economy.
That narrow stretch is not merely important. It is irreplaceable.
The Numbers Nobody Is Quoting You
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, an average of 20 million barrels of crude oil and petroleum products passed through the Strait of Hormuz every day in 2024 and 2025 — roughly 20 per cent of global petroleum liquids consumption and over a quarter of all seaborne oil trade. About one-fifth of the world’s liquefied natural gas also transited the strait, primarily from Qatar.
Five countries — Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the UAE, Iran, and Kuwait — account for approximately 94 per cent of all crude oil and condensate moving through Hormuz. But that oil does not go to Europe or America first. It goes to Asia. China receives nearly 38 per cent of all Hormuz crude flows. India takes 15 per cent. South Korea, 12 per cent. Japan, 11 per cent. Together, those four economies absorb 76 per cent of all crude moving through the strait.
Consider what that means in practice. China, India, Japan, and South Korea are not parties to this conflict. They did not initiate it, did not vote for it, and are not fighting it — yet they are bearing some of the harshest economic consequences.
Japan imports roughly 90 per cent of its energy. When oil crossed $100 a barrel, the Nikkei dropped more than five per cent in a single day. Japan holds approximately 150 days of oil reserves. The clock is ticking.
South Korea imports around 70 per cent of its oil from the Gulf. Its KOSPI index suffered its worst single-day crash since the 2008 financial crisis — down sharply, with circuit breakers triggered — because of a war it had nothing to do with.
Europe’s gas prices nearly doubled in 48 hours as regional supply anxiety cascaded across markets. Shipping companies are now rerouting vessels around the Cape of Good Hope, adding 15 to 20 days to the Asia-Europe journey. Every extra day adds to the cost, which ends up in your grocery cart.
Oil Is Food
The narrative extends far beyond fuel. Oil’s reach cuts deep into the global food supply — and most people have never been told this.
The Gulf not only produces energy. It produces nitrogen fertiliser — urea, ammonia, phosphates — that feeds the world. Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain together produce approximately 15 million metric tonnes of fertiliser every year. About one-third of all global seaborne fertiliser exports ship through Hormuz. According to Bloomberg analysis, nitrogen fertiliser underpins roughly half of global food production.
The numbers are already moving. Urea prices surged sharply in the weeks following the crisis — Carnegie Endowment data puts the benchmark price up roughly 30 per cent in a month, while more recent estimates place it up to 68 per cent above pre-war levels as of late March. Wheat hit near two-year highs. Palm oil surged. Soybeans and corn followed.
An Iowa farmer, unfamiliar with Hormuz or Middle Eastern geopolitics, is now considering planting fewer acres because nitrogen costs have become unsustainable — not as a result of anything he did, but as a consequence of a distant conflict. The American Farm Bureau has written to the White House urging emergency action on fertiliser supply chains. That is not routine. That is an alarm.
Now consider Nigeria, Sub-Saharan Africa, and nations with high food import dependency — the Philippines, Bangladesh, Sudan, Kenya — where food import bills are rising, and there are no strategic fertiliser reserves to draw down.
The Chain Nobody Is Tracing
Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, laid out the supply chain plainly in a widely circulated social media post as the crisis unfolded: “Iran war → Hormuz disruption → fertiliser shipments blocked → farmers reduce crop applications → harvests fall → food prices rise → central banks raise rates → borrowing costs up → economic growth slows → you pay more for everything. That chain starts in a 21-mile strait. It ends in your shopping cart.”
All of this is not hypothetical—it is already in motion.
According to S&P Global, just 116 commercial vessel transits occurred through the strait between March 1 and March 25 — down 97 per cent from February’s daily average of roughly 138 ships. Insurers, who have not cancelled Gulf coverage at this scale in modern history, have withdrawn war risk policies. Hapag-Lloyd added a $1,500-per-container war surcharge; CMA CGM followed with $3,000. Banks will not finance ships without insurance. Ships will not sail uninsured. The Strait is not formally closed. Insurance withdrawal is doing what a blockade would.
Dubai’s Jebel Ali, the Middle East’s largest port, has suspended normal operations. Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar Airways collectively move approximately 13 per cent of global air freight. All three carriers have been grounded or severely disrupted, with tens of thousands of flights cancelled and large numbers of passengers stranded across the region.
The Lesson Most People Will Miss
The global economy is not a collection of separate countries. It is one economy pretending to be many.
The proof is before us. One conflict. One straight. 21 miles.
The ripples have already crashed stock markets in Tokyo and Seoul, spiked gas prices across Europe, stranded cargo vessels across three oceans, suspended operations at the world’s busiest energy port, and raised the cost of bread in Lagos, Nairobi, and Manila.
Most people will blame the petrol station. They will blame the airline. They will blame their government — sometimes rightly. But they will not trace it back to the source.
Financial literacy — real financial literacy — is not purely about stocks, real estate, or exchange rates. It is regarding understanding how the world actually works. How energy flows. How supply chains snap. How a war in a place you cannot find on a map can determine whether a child in Sub-Saharan Africa eats tomorrow.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s chief economist has described the Hormuz disruption not only as an energy shock but also as a systemic shock affecting global food systems. That is not hyperbole from a commentator. That is a formal warning from the institution charged with monitoring global hunger.
This is the world we have built. Deeply, dangerously interconnected. One system. And right now, that system is under serious stress.
The question is not whether this war affects you. It already does. The question is whether you are paying attention.
The jagged limestone mountains of Oman’s Musandam Peninsula knife into the Strait of Hormuz — the 21-mile passage separating Iran to the north from Oman and the UAE to the south. At its narrowest, the gap between the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas and the Omani city of Khasab is just 65 kilometres. The peninsula’s peaks rise to 2,000 metres, carving dramatic fjord-like inlets along the coastline. An exclave of Oman, Musandam is cut off from the rest of the country by the UAE — isolated, rugged, and sitting at the edge of the world’s most consequential waterway. Image: NASA Terra satellite / MODIS, December 6, 2018.
