The Global Economy One Month After Hormuz Closed — The Numbers That Matter

One month after the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed, here is the specific economic data on oil prices, GDP projections, and which countries are most affected.

The Strait of Hormuz has been effectively closed — transit reduced from 150 to 10-20 vessels per day — for approximately five weeks, producing the specific economic data whose accumulation allows the first systematic assessment of the blockade's economic impact.

Oil market: Brent crude at $109.03 on April 3, up from approximately $75 before the war — a 45 percent increase. This is below the $180-200 scenarios that peak war-risk pricing produced in the first week; the specific adjustment reflects both the partial routing of alternative supplies and the demand destruction that high prices produce in price-sensitive markets.

European LNG: TTF (European natural gas benchmark) is approximately 60 percent above pre-war levels, with specific supply disruptions from Qatari LNG export interruption and alternative supply constraints. European industrial energy costs have risen sufficiently to produce the specific production curtailment in energy-intensive industries (aluminium, steel, chemicals) that is beginning to appear in manufacturing output data.

GDP projections: the IMF's preliminary assessment, released through an emergency update, revises 2026 global GDP growth downward by 0.8 percentage points from the pre-war January forecast. The specific distribution of this impact is geographically uneven — Asian manufacturing exporters who depend on Gulf energy supply are most exposed, while domestic energy producers (US, Norway, Russia for non-sanctioned buyers, Canada) are experiencing the specific GDP benefit of elevated commodity prices.

For food security: fertiliser prices up 40 percent, wheat futures up 18 percent, and the specific April planting season timing creating the first agricultural season since the blockade whose full cost won't be visible until autumn harvest data. The specific populations at highest food security risk are the same ones that were already at risk before the blockade's additional pressure was applied.

For the specific question of economic versus military leverage: the global economic cost of the Hormuz blockade is real and growing. Whether it generates the specific pressure on the US-Israeli military campaign that Iran is attempting to produce — through Gulf state government advocacy for negotiated resolution, through European diplomatic pressure, through specific US domestic economic pushback — is the specific test of Iran's economic warfare strategy whose outcome will shape the conflict's trajectory.