An article on the website of the trade data site Kpler describes the low level of total trade in commodities, now and for the remainder of the year, to which the Southwest Asia region has been reduced during the United States’ and Israel’s war of aggression against Iran.
The Strait of Hormuz remained very effectively closed, on the day of U.S. President Donald Trump’s social media declaration that he was opening it by lifting a U.S. blockade of Iran’s ports. Grain flows have shifted somewhat toward Iran’s West Coast on the Red Sea, and toward its eastern port of Chabahar; but these new flows have not compensated for the loss of the countries’ imports, in particular, through the Persian Gulf.
But no meaningful offset ports have been found for fertilizer exports through the Strait/Persian Gulf, with fertilizer exports to, and quantities in, many countries cut by 5% up to 40%. Some 40 vessels with ca. 2 million metric tonnes of fertilizer are trapped in the Strait. Urea prices, for example in the United States, have reached $1,000/tonne, confounding American corn farmers’ plans in particular. Corn cropping is shifting to soybeans, which require less nitrogen fertilizer.
