Key Stats

• About 40% of global seaborne trade passes through the Strait of Malacca each year.
• More than $1 trillion in annual trade transits the Suez Canal.
• Red Sea disruptions added $1 million or more per voyage for ships forced onto longer routes.
• 44% of Global Container Fleet Transits Taiwan Strait

Note: The figures describe different chokepoints and periods and should not be read as measurements taken at the same point in time.

Continue reading ↓

War-risk insurance premiums for ships affected by Red Sea disruption increased by approximately 900% at their peak, according to a new Council on Foreign Relations report examining the economic risks surrounding the world’s major maritime chokepoints.

The report says rerouting ships around the disruption added $1 million or more per voyage, while more than $1 trillion in annual trade normally passes through the Suez Canal.

The report, released July 23, argues that a relatively small number of straits, canals and infrastructure hubs carry disproportionately large shares of global trade, leaving supply chains exposed when conflict restricts access.

The Strait of Malacca, which connects the Indian and Pacific oceans, is one of the clearest examples. CFR estimates that the route carries 40% of global seaborne trade annually.

Recent U.S. Energy Information Administration data also show the scale of its role in energy markets. About 20.9 million barrels per day of crude oil and petroleum products passed through Malacca in the first quarter of 2026.

Disruptions can add $1 million to a voyage

Other major shipping routes show similar concentrations.

CFR says more than $1 trillion in annual trade passes through the Suez Canal, while disruptions associated with Houthi attacks in the Red Sea added $1 million or more per voyage for ships forced onto longer routes around Africa.

War-risk insurance premiums increased by approximately 900% at their peak during the disruption, according to the report.

The Taiwan Strait presents another major concentration. CFR estimates that 44% of the global container fleet transits the corridor, alongside a large share of the world’s advanced semiconductor supply.

The report says the Panama Canal is also responsible for about 40% of U.S. container trade moving between the East Coast and Asia.

Those figures illustrate a basic problem identified by the report: the efficiency gained by concentrating global shipping through narrow routes can also make trade more vulnerable when one of those routes becomes difficult or unsafe to use.

Energy flows show the scale of the exposure

Energy shipments are particularly concentrated.

EIA data show that the Strait of Malacca carried 20.9 million barrels per day of oil in the first quarter of 2026, while the Strait of Hormuz carried 14.6 million barrels per day during the same period.

Another 5.4 million barrels per day passed through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, while the Suez Canal and SUMED pipeline carried 4.9 million barrels per day.

The figures do not mean all of those supplies would disappear during a disruption. Ships can sometimes use alternative routes, but rerouting can increase travel time, fuel use, freight costs and insurance expenses.

Hormuz shows how quickly conditions can change

CFR uses the 2026 disruption of the Strait of Hormuz as one of its central case studies, alongside earlier disruptions in the Red Sea and Black Sea.

The timing requires some caution: the report’s Hormuz case material includes information current through May, before a June agreement between the United States and Iran led to increased shipping traffic through the strait.

The EIA said on July 7 that oil traffic had risen following the June 18 memorandum and forecast that global crude production and trade flows would move toward pre-conflict levels by the end of 2026.

The disruption nevertheless produced an unusually large international response. In March, International Energy Agency members agreed to make 400 million barrels of emergency oil stocks available, the largest coordinated release in the agency’s history.

Why it matters

Maritime chokepoints connect events in relatively small geographic areas with prices and supply chains thousands of miles away.

A disruption can affect shipping costs, energy markets, industrial inputs and food or fertilizer supplies even in countries far removed from the conflict itself.

CFR’s report argues that governments should prepare for such disruptions before they occur because financial and economic measures alone cannot reopen a physically inaccessible trade route.

The report is a policy analysis rather than a new statistical survey or global trade dataset. Its headline figures draw on government data, previous research and historical case studies, meaning individual estimates refer to different periods and should not be read as measurements taken at one point in time.