Shipping giant Maersk said on Thursday that ongoing disruptions to global shipping that attacks from the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists of Yemen have caused are making shipping increasingly expensive.
Maersk’s update confirmed that its predictions in July of a “cascading impact” from the Houthi attacks, affecting far more than shipping lines that run through the Red Sea, have come true.
As for the Red Sea shipping lane, Maersk cited data that conclude transits of the Suez Canal are down by 66 percent since Houthi attacks began prompting shippers to reroute their vessels around Africa.
“These disruptions have led to service reconfigurations and volume shifts, straining infrastructure and resulting in port congestion, delays, and shortages in capacity and equipment,” Maersk said.
“The timeline for easing these disruptions and returning to ‘normal’ remains uncertain,” the company added.
The Red Sea situation is a disaster for the Biden-Harris administration, which promised in December to lead a multi-national military operation to protect the shipping lanes. Shipping companies never had much faith in President Joe Biden’s “Operation Prosperity Guardian,” and their skepticism has been justified.
Another humiliation was delivered on Tuesday, as the European Union (EU) naval force in the Red Sea admitted that a salvage operation to recover the burning oil tanker MV Sounion — potentially an environmental catastrophe of fearsome proportions — had to be abandoned because Western forces could not protect the salvage teams from Houthi attacks.
“The private companies responsible for the salvage operation have concluded that the conditions were not met to conduct the towing operation and that it was not safe to proceed. Alternative solutions are now being explored by the private companies,” said a statement from ASPIDES, the EU naval command in the Red Sea.
ASPIDES refused to answer questions about its statement or provide further details. The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) likewise failed to explain why an environmental disaster that could be four times the size of the notorious Exxon Valdez incident can only be prevented if the Houthis decide to allow it.
A U.S. defense official confided to the Associated Press (AP) on Tuesday that the U.S. military “has not been asked and has no role in the cleanup or towing of the Sounion.”
“There are no American vessels known to be in the Red Sea at the moment, as the EU mission has taken charge after the Sounion attack,” the AP reported.
RANE Group analyst Matthew Bey told the AP that the Red Sea terror campaign has been a “very significant recruiting boon” for the Houthis, who have been circulating triumphant videos of the Sounion burning while Houthi fighters chant, “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”
“I think there are a lot of incentives for them to target shipping in the future because they’ve learned that they can be very successful in that. It brings in the West, which is kind of the enemy that they want to fight to some degree, as well,” Bey said.