OVERSEEING a major international trade chokepoint is presumably a high-stress occupation, even on a good day.

For those in charge of the Panama and Suez canals, good days are pretty thin on the ground right now.

In Panama, as President Jose Raul Mulino anxiously awaits a call back from Donald Trump, the business of keeping trade flowing is being overshadowed by the need to counter political “falsehoods” and brace for threatened military reprisals should negotiations go south.

In Port Said, Suez Canal Authority chief Osama Rabie’s ill-fated forecast that normal trade was about to resume is looking increasingly unlikely.

Less than 24 hours after he told TV cameras that traffic through the Egyptian waterway would gradually return to normal by late March and fully recover by mid-year, the tentative peace upon which his overly optimistic predictions were predicated began to crumble.

While Rabie was not alone in assuming that a ceasefire in Gaza would automatically result in trade lanes following the headlines, the reality is that shipping has been waiting.

If the March 1 second phase of the ceasefire deadline somehow passes muster then several owners are talking about a phased, and very tentative return. But the small trickle of test runs that have been tracked in recent days does not indicate a trend yet.

Announcements from the Houthi’s that their “hands are on the trigger and we are ready to immediately escalate against the Israeli enemy if it returns to escalation in the Gaza Strip”, do little to settle the nerves in shipping board rooms.

Lloyd’s List Intelligence data is clear: transits through the beleaguered shipping lane have been steady and in line with “new” normal levels. The industry is still wary of the safety risks.

Rabie has a vested interest in the most positive interpretation of events. The canal’s revenues dropped by around 60% because of the war, and losses for the fiscal year ending June will be around $7bn.

Equally president Mulino wants to put the most positive spin on the geopolitical uncertainty hanging over his every move.

But saying something, however convincingly, does not make it a reality.

The immediate fate of both waterways effectively rests on what Donald Trump says next and whether enough people believe that to be true.

Richard Meade
Editor-in-chief, Lloyd’s List

Click here to view the latest Lloyd’s List Daily Briefing