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If your weekend involved watching someone confidently announce a plan, immediately reverse it, and then set something on fire, congratulations: you either watched playoff hockey or followed the Strait of Hormuz. Happy Monday. Here's this week's Flow.
— Maddie
Market Update
The six-week container rate rally snapped. WCI dropped 3% as Transpacific and Asia-Europe rates softened. US diesel dipped for the first time in 13 weeks, though it's still up 86% since February. Both numbers moved in the same direction this week. For once, it was down.
Pressure Test
If you've ever watched someone crack open a pressure valve, stand back while everything hisses out, and then weld the whole thing shut again before the gauge hits zero, you have a rough sense of what happened at the Strait of Hormuz this week.
Iran declared the strait fully open to commercial shipping on Thursday, the first unrestricted access in seven weeks. Brent crude dropped roughly 10%, briefly touching $84 per barrel. Shipping desks exhaled. For about 24 hours, the crisis looked like it might actually be ending.
Then the valve slammed shut.
Trump confirmed that the US naval blockade on Iranian ports, in place since April 13, would remain in force despite the reopening. Over a dozen US warships positioned in the Gulf of Oman have turned back 25+ commercial vessels heading to or from Iran since the blockade began. Iran's response was blunt: "It is impossible for others to pass through the Strait of Hormuz while we cannot."
On Friday, Iran re-closed the strait and accused the US of "piracy and maritime theft" (a phrase doing an impressive amount of diplomatic heavy lifting). IRGC gunboats fired on commercial vessels transiting the strait, hitting containers on at least one ship. India summoned Iran's ambassador after two Indian-flagged merchants came under fire.
Brent rebounded above $90, heading back toward $96. The entire 10% drop, erased overnight.
The two-week ceasefire (mediated by Pakistan, agreed April 7) expires this week. The first round of direct US-Iran talks ended after 21 hours in Islamabad without agreement.
The sticking point: Iran offered a five-year uranium enrichment suspension. The US demanded twenty. That's not a negotiating gap. That's two countries having two different conversations.
Traffic through the strait: 3-5 ships per day, versus a normal 130-140. The EIA boosted its 2026 Brent forecast to $96 per barrel. Trump told reporters new Islamabad talks "could be happening over the next two days."
Twenty-four hours of open water. Then a blockade that stayed. Then gunfire. A reopening that ends with both sides closing the same strait for different reasons isn't a peace deal. It's a preview of how complicated the next one will be.
What Else is Moving
⚖️ Day 55 of 150. Your refund portal goes live this morning. If your company paid IEEPA tariff duties at any point, today matters. CBP's CAPE tool launches at 8 AM EST, allowing 330,000 importers to begin filing for refunds for the first time. Phase 1 covers approximately 63% of eligible entries, with refunds expected in 60-90 days. Meanwhile, the replacement Section 122 tariff is still in legal limbo: three CIT judges heard marathon oral arguments on April 10, were openly skeptical, and haven't ruled yet. The refund machine is going live while the tariff it was built to replace might not survive the courtroom.
🇨🇳 50% tariff, one intelligence report, zero legal authority. President Trump threatened a 50% tariff on China on April 13 after reports that Beijing was preparing to ship air defense systems to Iran. Quick legal reality check: Section 122 caps at 15%. A 50% unilateral tariff would need a legal vehicle that doesn't exist yet (and may never). The threat came weeks before Trump's planned May trip to Beijing, effectively turning a trade summit into a negotiation over chips and missiles simultaneously. Whether Beijing actually shipped anything remains unconfirmed. Whether 50% is achievable remains, generously, unclear.
🇯🇵 ¥30,000 a month. Still no. Japan's dockworker unions agreed on April 15 to postpone an indefinite nighttime cargo handling refusal that had been set to begin today. The dispute between the unions (representing over 17,000 workers) and the Japan Harbor Transportation Association has been running since spring 2025, when strikes on March 30, April 13, and April 20 halted cargo handling at ports including Tokyo and Yokohama. The core demand hasn't moved: a ¥30,000 monthly base pay increase, roughly 10%. Negotiations resume April 28. Japan handles roughly 5% of global container throughput. Thirteen days bought. Same demands on the table.
By The Numbers
That’s how many container ships currently sitting in the Arabian Gulf doing absolutely nothing, representing roughly 470,000 TEU of capacity. Evergreen and COSCO formally axed their Asia-Middle East services this week (MEA4 and MEA5 loops). That's approximately 1.5% of the global container fleet, floating idle in a war zone.
Every day those ships sit still, capacity tightens on every other trade lane.
An entire mid-tier carrier's worth of vessels, removed from the market by accident. Some carrier CFOs are calculating war-zone losses with one hand and watching spot rates firm up with the other.
Water Cooler Ammo
🤖 Your next colleague in the freight department might not need a desk. Or a lunch break. Or health insurance. project44 acquired LunaPath.ai and launched three new AI agents: one for freight procurement, one for slot booking, one for carrier onboarding.
🌊 NOAA issued an El Niño Watch projecting possible emergence by mid-2026. The Panama Canal, barely recovered from its worst drought in 132 years, might be heading back into water trouble. LNG transits remain 73% below pre-drought levels. This canal cannot catch a break.
✈️ Six weeks. That's how long Europe's jet fuel supplies will last, according to IEA Director Fatih Birol. SAS has already cancelled 1,000 April flights. KLM is cutting 160 in May. Jet fuel prices have doubled since February. In the US, fuel gets expensive. In Europe, it might just run out.
The Last Mile
Twenty-four hours of open water taught the industry something this week: the gap between "open" and "safe" is wider than the strait itself.
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