Iran's shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz has drawn comparisons with the supply disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic and US President Donald Trump's new tariff regime.

The pandemic exposed the world's heavy dependence on China for manufacturing everything from electronics to medical gear, while Trump’s tariffs, introduced last year, also accelerated efforts to cut that reliance.

The war in Iran has highlighted yet another weakness: how fast a disruption to critical raw materials such as oil, gas and fertilizers can ripple across global trade.

The International Energy Agency described the loss of roughly 10% of the world's oil supply and a fifth of global liquefied natural gas last month as the largest in the history of the global energy market.

Demand and then supply shock

While the pandemic delivered a broad demand shock and Trump's tariffs prompted a sustained shift in supply chains, the Iran war has dealt an acute supply-side blow concentrated on energy and commodities.

The shocks may differ in nature, but their impact on companies feels similar, said Sebastian Janssen, a partner at Oliver Wyman, a New York-based global management consulting firm. "COVID exposed overdependence on a manufacturing hub, while Hormuz exposed overdependence on a transport corridor and on energy inputs," the supply chain analyst told DW.

During the pandemic, factories shut down, ships stacked up at major ports and just-in-time systems — which keep inventories low and rely on parts arriving exactly when needed — buckled. Yet energy prices stayed relatively steady. This time, non‑energy trade, so far, has held up better.

Supply chain expert Lisa Anderson, president of LMA Consulting Group, thinks the back-to-back crises have altered how many companies now assess risk.

"COVID got companies to the point where they realized they can't just count on supply showing up when they need it," Anderson told DW. "The Iran war shows it was not a one-off event."

Hormuz disruptions far from peaking

The surge in oil, gas and fertilizer prices has, however, already forced governments to revise their inflation forecasts, as the risk of wider disruptions in goods trade still looms. 

Over the past month, shipping companies have again been forced into an abrupt rerouting exercise — the last being in 2023/24 when Yemen-based Houthis attacked vessels around the Red Sea.

Tankers and gas carriers that once passed through Hormuz now take a long detour around South Africa's Cape of Good Hope. This adds thousands of nautical miles and up to two weeks to many voyages.

War-risk insurance premiums for vessels in the Middle East have surged, adding several million dollars to each transit. These costs are already feeding into higher prices for energy, chemicals and manufactured goods.

Full impact pending

Yet the added cost is only part of the challenge. Making supply chains more resilient is proving especially difficult because the full impact of the disruption has yet to be fully felt, Janssen said.

"[The impact of this] scarcity is still rippling through companies’ multi-tiered supply chains ... [and] will take months for the full effect to surface and for supply chains to stabilize once the Strait is fully reopened," he pointed out.

Those concerns are widespread. Nearly two-thirds of firms are worried about further supply chain disruptions and higher energy and commodity prices due to the war, a survey of 6,000 companies in 13 countries found.

The research, published on April 8 by Allianz Trade, the trade research arm of Germany's Allianz Group, noted an increase in plans to accelerate so-called reshoring or nearshoring — the practice of moving production and suppliers closer to home or to more stable neighboring countries. This shift is especially pronounced in Europe.

"One way to avoid major choke points is to bring manufacturing closer to where the customers are," Anderson told DW.

Geopolitical risk now seen as strategic

Beyond the immediate Hormuz disruption, some changes in global trade patterns may now be permanent. The survey found that geopolitical risk, including wars and tariffs, has become the top concern for two-thirds of firms, up sharply since 2025.

Companies that were heavily reliant on China are increasingly adopting the +1 or +2 approach to trade, adding at least one additional country to their supply chain to reduce risk. India, Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia are benefiting the most, while research also shows increasing interest in Europe as a manufacturing destination.

Just-in-time manufacturing is increasingly giving way to a "just-in-case" approach. Factories are once again increasing inventory buffers, with safety stockpiling reaching the highest level in three years, according to supply chain software giant GEP’s March 2026 Global Supply Chain Volatility Index.

This mirrors the pattern seen during the pandemic and around Trump's tariffs, when companies also rushed to build buffers against uncertainty and potential shortages.

As companies prepare for a future likely punctuated by additional geopolitical shock, from tensions over Taiwan to instability on the Korean Peninsula, many seem to have concluded that true resilience requires flexibility, redundancy and stronger strategic partnerships across their entire supply network.

John Sfakianakis, head of economic research at Saudi Arabia's Gulf Research Center, warned in a recent article that vulnerability today is less about dependence and more about "resilience across interconnected systems" like energy, finance, logistics and political cohesion.

The Iran war "is not so much a regional conflict as it is a stress test of how the international system functions under pressure," Stakianaksi said. 

Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru