Chokepoints: Panama, Suez, Bab el-Mandeb and Hormuz in Transit Counts

The war that closed Hormuz to normal trade did not close the world's other chokepoints; it rerouted traffic through them. The Red Sea corridor has recovered beyond its January level because container carriers are returning to Suez, while crude tankers using the Red Sea have thinned under the Houthi campaign against Saudi-linked shipping; that January level is a low bar, since Suez traffic remains far below where it stood before the Houthi campaign began. Hormuz remains open in name and thin in counts: its non-Iranian-linked traffic is rising slowly from a very low base while the attack tempo climbs. Panama is the one chokepoint governed by rain rather than war, and its slots are set by the level of its lake. By the late November readings we expect Hormuz to stay far below its pre-war flow, the Red Sea corridor to hold above January, and Panama to keep its current slots, with each of these views tested by a claim below.