The global economy is starting to rediscover a sensation it hoped had been buried with the pandemic: the slow suffocation of supply chains. Not yet the chaos of 2021. Not yet empty shelves, paralysed ports or factories waiting for missing components from the other side of the world. But the indicators are moving in the same direction, and fast enough to make central bankers deeply uncomfortable. The difference is that this time the shock does not come from lockdowns. It comes from war. The conflict around Iran and the effective disruption of the Strait of Hormuz are beginning to infect the logistical bloodstream of the global economy. Shipping routes are longer. Fuel is dramatically more expensive. Insurance costs have exploded. Delivery times are rising. Warehousing capacity is tightening. Freight rates are climbing again. Everywhere, companies are quietly rebuilding inventories out of fear that tomorrow’s goods may become more expensive or simply unavailable.

The New York Fed’s global supply-chain pressure index has now risen for three consecutive months and has reached its highest level since mid-2022. The World Bank’s shipping stress indicator is once again flirting with pandemic territory. Japanese manufacturers are stockpiling. American delivery times are lengthening sharply. German chemical producers are reporting fresh material shortages. Logistics managers in the United States describe transport inflation as “strongly felt across supply chains”. The language is becoming familiar again. During the pandemic, supply chains collapsed because the world stopped producing. Today, they are straining because the world can no longer move energy efficiently through its most critical maritime corridor. Different origin. Similar consequence. The logic is brutally simple. Roughly one-fifth of global oil and LNG flows normally transit through Hormuz. When that artery becomes unstable, shipping becomes slower, more expensive and more uncertain. Container operators reroute vessels around Africa. Transit times increase. Fuel consumption rises. Insurance premiums surge. Fleet capacity tightens because ships spend more time at sea. Freight prices follow. Then every factory importing components begins paying more.

And eventually, consumers do too. That is why central banks are nervous again. Inflation was supposed to be fading. Markets had already started fantasising about rate cuts, softer monetary policy and a gradual return to normality. Instead, the world is rediscovering imported inflation through supply chain disruptions. This is particularly dangerous because supply-chain inflation behaves differently from demand inflation. Central banks cannot pump more oil through Hormuz. They cannot shorten maritime routes. They cannot manufacture semiconductors faster simply by adjusting interest rates. Yet they are forced to respond because rising transport costs eventually contaminate everything else. The supply-chain indicators tell the story before official inflation data fully do.

Maersk now expects an additional 500 million dollars in monthly costs due to the energy shock and openly states that customers will pay the bill. Freight rates are already moving higher again. American transport costs have surged to their highest levels since 2018. Delivery delays in US manufacturing and services are the worst since 2022. Japanese companies are rebuilding inventories not because demand is booming, but because fear is. Fear has returned to logistics. That distinction matters enormously. Inventory accumulation driven by optimism creates growth. Inventory accumulation driven by insecurity creates fragility. Companies order more today because they fear tomorrow may be worse. That behaviour artificially boosts activity in the short term while increasing the risk of a sharper slowdown later once inventories become excessive, and demand weakens.

The world saw this film in 2021 and 2022. It ended with inflation, aggressive monetary tightening and recession fears. This time, however, the geopolitical dimension makes the situation even more unstable. During COVID, governments sought to reopen supply chains. Today, major powers are simultaneously trying to weaponise trade, sanctions, energy routes and strategic dependencies against one another. The system is therefore under pressure not only from economics, but from politics. China stockpiles commodities while negotiating around Iran. The United States threatens tariffs while trying to stabilise shipping lanes. Europe faces energy vulnerability again, precisely when its industrial base is already weakened. Emerging markets remain trapped between higher fuel costs, weaker currencies and tightening financial conditions.

And beneath all of this lies an uncomfortable truth: the global economy never truly rebuilt resilience after the pandemic. It merely hoped the next shock would arrive later. Instead, it arrived through Hormuz. For now, shortages remain limited. The world is not yet running out of aluminium, semiconductors or industrial chemicals at pandemic scale. But the direction is increasingly clear. Warehousing is tightening. Shipping capacity is under pressure. Fuel costs are feeding through the system. Delivery times are extending. Governments are already discussing strategic reserves again. Inflation, therefore, risks returning through the side door just as central banks believed they had finally contained it. This is the deeper irony of the Iran conflict. The war may eventually end with a ceasefire, a compromise or another diplomatic performance staged for domestic audiences. But the economic damage has already spread far beyond the battlefield. It now sits inside freight invoices, warehouse contracts, refinery margins and delivery schedules.

Globalisation was built on the assumption that goods would always move cheaply, predictably and safely across oceans. The world is beginning to discover once again what happens when that assumption breaks. Not collapse. Not yet. But enough pressure for markets, central banks and governments to realise that the age of stable supply chains may have been shorter than anyone imagined.