FLASH
Shkruar nga Claudio Paudice
From Panama to Hormuz, from Bab El-Mandeb to Greenland, at these strategic points of maritime trade flows, a real competition is taking place between great powers: whoever controls them holds the key to scarcity and abundance, gaining the power to accelerate the economic decline of their rival.
Technological and military goods, mineral raw materials, energy and food, finished and semi-finished industrial products, practically every link in global supply chains passes through these "choke points" of world trade.
The war in the Middle East, which has caused the paralysis of traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, proves very clearly who the real stakeholder is in the reorganization of the international order.
In the National Security Strategy document published at the end of 2025 by the Donald Trump administration, the United States has affirmed its intention to prevent an adversary power from dominating the Middle East, its oil and gas supplies, and the strategic points through which they pass. The reason is easy to understand. Whoever controls these vital points, these mandatory crossings where large flows of goods encounter obstacles or physical bottlenecks that hinder, slow down, or regulate transit, has the power to orient the meeting between supply and demand for goods.
In theory it dictates scarcity or abundance, and in practice its price. These points are not numerous, but they are vital to the international order: Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, Bab el-Mandeb between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, the Panama Canal that runs through Central America, the Suez Canal between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, the Strait of Malacca between the Pacific and Indian Oceans, the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, and a few others.
It is precisely these points that serve as the backdrop for the current clash between the United States and China in the great global competition. Earlier this week, Beijing intervened for the first time in the Middle East conflict with particular severity.
If until now he had remained silent on the illegality of the trade ban imposed by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz, this time he bluntly described as dangerous and irresponsible the naval blockade announced by Trump, which applies to all ships headed to or departing from Iran.
This is a decision that directly affects China's economic interests. Until now, the Hormuz crisis had partially spared Chinese trade, as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had made several exceptions, allowing Beijing's ships to enter and exit the strait, sometimes even against payment of a fee.
With the naval blockade imposed by Trump, China is now also left out of the region from which, before the war, one-fifth of global shipments of liquefied natural gas and oil departed every day.
According to Kpler data, China bought over 80 percent of Iran's seaborne oil last year. Imports amounted to 1.4 million barrels per day out of a total of 10.4 million barrels.
Before the war, Beijing imported over 11 percent of its oil from Iran, second only to the 20 percent coming from Russia and 14 percent from Saudi Arabia. Despite the passage of some ships, natural gas imports in March fell 10.7 percent, marking the lowest level since October 2022, while crude oil imports fell 2.8 percent.
Although better prepared than other Asian countries, the Chinese economy is feeling the brunt of the conflict. For now, refiners have been instructed to limit exports and focus supplies on the domestic market, thus forgoing some of the huge profits associated with the shortage of refined products such as diesel and gasoline in global markets.
Moreover, shipments from its second-largest supplier, Saudi Arabia, are expected to halve in May. In March, for various reasons, the trade surplus had already shrunk to just $15 billion.
If this trend continues, it could become a serious problem, as China always relies on trade surpluses to compensate for weak domestic demand and achieve its growth targets.
The Monetary Fund lowered its forecasts for global growth without sparing China, which is expected to grow 4 percent this year, a level far removed from the 5 percent that is considered the guideline for Chinese economic policy.
These figures serve to show the impact that closing a strategic point can have on even a very powerful economy. But above all, they explain why the Trump administration seeks to control them at all costs.
In January, after strong pressure from the US, Panama's Supreme Court annulled the concession that allowed Hong Kong-based and China-linked CK Hutchison to manage the canal ports, after Trump threatened to seize them on the grounds that China had taken de facto control of that sea passage.
The Hong Kong company, through its Panamanian branch, has launched a legal battle and sought damages of over $2 billion for its expulsion from the ports of Cristobal and Balboa.
In this clash for control of Panama, it also has the support of the local government. While the competition for the concessions is expected to open, the management of the terminals has been temporarily entrusted to the Swiss company MSC and the Danish company Maersk.
Now, according to reports from the Financial Times, officials from the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission have ordered the two European giants to immediately withdraw from Panama, warning them not to harm the interests of Chinese companies and to respect business ethics.
Of course, China will not easily give up by accepting expulsion from Panama, just as it does not intend to passively suffer the costs of the American naval blockade in the Arabian Sea. In this great competition, the nerve centers of trade routes play a fundamental role, as they are both physical and legal.
They are the levers that Washington and Beijing use at the negotiating table to resolve their disputes. We are currently in a new phase that puts the principle of freedom of navigation in crisis and confirms the ideas of historian Arnaud Orain on the scarcity paradigm, where strategic resources are used as weapons against rivals.
This conflict takes place on two levels: the technological-industrial and the physical-infrastructural. Whoever does not control the first tries to compensate with the second. The case of Panama is interesting because it combines the importance of a geographical point with the legal dimension. Having your companies as concessionaires means having the power to hinder the traffic of rivals through rigorous controls. China has used this power by tripling export restrictions in recent years. The issues of transport routes and barriers will be at the center of the upcoming summit between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump.
But the fact is that in a world where 80 percent of trade is done by sea, these vital crossings are a weapon with fatal consequences for countries' economies. The blockade is prompting another blockade, with Iran threatening to close the Bab El-Mandeb if the US naval blockade continues.
These points are now genuine military targets. American interest in Greenland and new Arctic routes demonstrates the importance of advantageous geographical points. Hitting them could cause economic damage that would take years to repair.
Today, economic security depends entirely on freedom of movement in these delicate nodes, which from guarantors of global trade have been transformed into bastions of an economic war that can strike anyone, at any moment and in any corner of the planet./ Adapted from "Pamphlet", from "Huffington Post Italia"
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