19 December 2023 at 12:08 Pentagon: Houthi attacks “threaten” global trade Houthi attacks on tankers in the Red Sea “threaten” the global flow of trade, the Pentagon says in a statement on Tuesday. Several container shipping lines have stopped traffic in the Red Sea as a result of the attacks there in recent days. The Houthi rebels in Yemen have taken responsibility for the actions, and have linked them to Israel’s warfare in the Gaza Strip. Yesterday the oil giant BP announced that they are temporarily suspending all shipping through the Red Sea. It happened after the Norwegian-owned tanker Swan Atlantic was hit by an “object” in the south of the Red Sea on Monday. Today, the Norwegian-Swedish shipping company Wallenius Wilhelmsen stopped all shipping in the Red Sea until further notice. The Suez Canal is one of the world’s most important canals and connects the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. It is a central trade route between Asia and Europe, and the route is much shorter than the shipping route around the coast of Africa and the Cape of Good Hope. The detour is bad news for consumers, warns senior consultant Peter Bay Kirkegaard in Dansk Industri (DI) Global trade and investment. – This means higher freight rates, longer delivery times and more bottlenecks in the global supply chain. It is bad news for world trade at a time when we are otherwise in the process of recovering from the challenges the pandemic brought with it, says Kirkegaard. He compares the situation to March 2021, when the container ship Ever Given ran aground and blocked the Suez Canal. – It will also speed up inflation, which we were otherwise in the process of getting under control, he says. The Norwegian Shipping Association meets with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the Red Sea on Tuesday.
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Houthi attacks “threaten” global trade – Latest news – news
