.png "Global Insight")
The world's top trade official just said what many businesses are already acting on: the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East are not a temporary disruption to global trade — they are permanently redrawing its map. Speaking to Reuters on Thursday on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank annual meetings in Bangkok, World Trade Organization Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said shifting geopolitics will have a lasting impact on world trade flows, as companies hedge against future shocks by building entirely new supply routes.
The numbers behind the warning
The WTO is now forecasting a 17 percent drop in exports this year, with imports down about 15 percent — a contraction concentrated in the Middle East, where trade has fallen sharply as a result of the Iran war despite a series of workarounds. Okonjo-Iweala said the damage would take some time to bounce back, and some of it may never bounce back at all. Private-sector analysts had forecast a rebound once the war ended and the Strait of Hormuz reopened, since it offers the cheapest route for oil and goods — but repeated conflicts have taught companies a different lesson. Diversification and contingency planning are now permanent features of trade strategy, not emergency measures.
"Choke points and choke assets"
The phrase Okonjo-Iweala used — "we are finding that choke points and choke assets are things we have to think about for the world" — captures the era's defining anxiety. Alternative trade routes that began as wartime improvisations are becoming permanent because, in her words, "both countries and businesses want to hedge against eventualities." Add to that the massive wave of tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump, and the old playbook of hyper-efficient, single-route supply chains looks like a relic. "There's absolutely no doubt that supply chains have been reconfiguring," she said — creative, but more costly, and those costs will eventually land in consumer prices everywhere. She also pointed to one possible upside: an opportunity for intra-African trade to grow as global routes fracture. The deeper point is structural: even when the wars end, the insurance-driven geography of trade they've created will stay. For more on the wars reshaping these routes, read our coverage of Iran's changing Hormuz playbook, China's export surge in the AI boom and the US sanctions ultimatum on the ICC.