Getting American food products into the Gulf has gotten more complicated in 2026. Between the ongoing Red Sea security situation and the disruption to Strait of Hormuz traffic following the February 2026 US/Israel-Iran conflict, ocean carriers have had to rebuild their Middle East routing on the fly — and distributors who rely on Gulf ports are feeling it in both cost and transit time. Here’s what’s actually happening and how importers are adapting.
Two Overlapping Disruptions
Red Sea shipping has been unsettled since Houthi attacks began targeting vessels transiting the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait. Most container lines still default to routing around the Cape of Good Hope rather than through the Suez Canal, adding roughly 10–14 days to Asia–Europe voyages, and industry expectations are that these diversions continue through at least 2027.
That was the baseline heading into 2026. Then, following the February 2026 conflict, commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz — which normally carries about a fifth of the world’s oil and LNG, plus a significant share of Gulf-bound container traffic — dropped to near zero for an extended stretch, with over 1,500 vessels stranded in and around the strait at the peak of the disruption. Iran also introduced a vetting system requiring ships to clear an approval process to transit, which has added further friction even where traffic has partially resumed.
For a food exporter shipping into Gulf markets, this is the compounding effect worth understanding: it’s not just one chokepoint under strain, it’s two, and they don’t necessarily open or close on the same schedule.
What It’s Costing
The rate impact has been sharp. Spot rates from Shanghai to Jebel Ali reportedly jumped from around $1,800 to more than $4,000 per FEU within days of the February escalation. On top of base rates, carriers have layered on war risk surcharges in the range of $1,500–$4,000 per container, and total shipping costs on some Gulf routings are estimated to have risen 125–180% depending on the specific route and cargo type.
Carriers have also started invoking “end-of-voyage” clauses on some services — meaning cargo booked for a Gulf destination port can be offloaded at the nearest port a carrier considers safe (commonly Salalah in Oman, or ports in India) rather than carried all the way to its original destination, leaving the importer to arrange onward transport themselves.
New Entry Points Distributors Are Leaning On
With direct Gulf-port calls less predictable, volume has shifted toward a handful of alternative gateways that let cargo reach Gulf and Levant markets without transiting the most contested chokepoints:
- Khor Fakkan (UAE, east coast, Gulf of Oman side): This transshipment port has absorbed an extraordinary volume surge — weekly container throughput reportedly jumped from around 8,000 to as high as 65,000 containers during peak disruption periods. That’s well beyond what the port was built to handle smoothly, and congestion has followed; some days have seen the terminal essentially at full capacity. It’s a useful east-coast alternative to Jebel Ali precisely because it sits outside the strait, but it isn’t a frictionless one right now.
- Salalah (Oman): Salalah has picked up significant volume as a Cape-route stop and as the port carriers increasingly nominate under “end-of-voyage” clauses for Gulf-bound cargo. It’s become a de facto overflow hub for the region, though relying on it means budgeting for onward inland or feeder transport to reach final Gulf destinations.
- Jeddah / King Abdullah Port (Saudi Arabia, Red Sea coast): Saudi Arabia has been actively expanding Red Sea capacity — Jeddah Islamic Port now handles over 10 million TEU of capacity, and King Abdullah Port (Rabigh) adds roughly another 25 million TEU of capacity as a major East-West transshipment hub. Saudi port operator Mawani has also stood up feeder services like the Red Sea Express, connecting Jeddah and Yanbu with Egypt’s Ain Sokhna and Jordan’s Aqaba, giving shippers a way to move cargo across the region without a single vessel making every stop.
- Aqaba (Jordan): Jordan’s only seaport has seen a real jump in activity — container volumes at the Aqaba Container Terminal reached about 472,681 TEU in the first half of 2026, with transit-import containers (cargo moving onward to other markets, including the Gulf via land routes) up roughly 155% year-on-year. Aqaba functions as a land-bridge option: cargo arrives by sea outside the Red Sea’s most contested stretch, then moves by road toward Gulf and Levant destinations.
What This Means for Distributors Sourcing From the US
None of this is specific to any one supplier — it’s a regional shipping reality that affects any ocean freight moving toward Gulf markets right now. A few practical implications for distributors and importers:
- Build in buffer time. Multi-week delays and port substitutions are a real possibility on any given voyage right now, not an edge case. Order lead times that worked in 2023–2024 may not be realistic today.
- Expect and budget for surcharges. War risk premiums and rerouting costs are being passed through across the industry; they’re not a red flag specific to one carrier or supplier.
- Diversify entry points where possible. Distributors who can receive cargo through more than one Gulf-region gateway (rather than depending on a single direct port call) have more flexibility when a specific route gets disrupted.
- Work with exporters who actively manage routing. A US exporter that’s tracking these disruptions and adjusting bookings accordingly is a better long-term partner right now than one treating routing as a fixed, set-and-forget decision.
The situation is still evolving, and port congestion, surcharge levels, and available routings can change quickly. Country Sun Foods works with distributors across Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, and Bahrain and is tracking these shipping conditions closely as part of how we plan export logistics.
Become a distributor today to talk through current shipping timelines and options for your market.