Suez Canal remains a narrow choke point for world trade

The Suez Canal handles roughly 15% of global trade and about 30% of container traffic, moving goods worth over a trillion US dollars each year. A 2021 blockage by the container ship Ever Given halted around 400 vessels for a week, exposing the canal’s vulnerability and causing temporary shortages in European supermarkets.

Egypt relies heavily on the canal, which is the country’s third‑largest source of foreign‑exchange earnings. Since July 2024, revenues have fallen by 45% as regional conflicts – the war in Ukraine, Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, piracy off the Horn of Africa and the Hormuz Strait blockade – have disrupted traffic. The canal authority’s head, Osama Rabie, noted, “This is the first time in the world that a container ship has been freed from such a difficult situation without being off‑loaded.” Despite the setbacks, Rabie remains optimistic, saying, “I hope 2026 will be better than the previous two years.”

The waterway, opened in 1869 and nationalised by Egypt in 1956, was expanded in 2015 with a second lane covering more than a third of its length, but it still lacks an equivalent alternative for global maritime trade.