Saudi Arabia has long warned, ever since the Houthis overthrew Yemen's legitimate government and began threatening maritime navigation, that the consequences of this danger would extend far beyond the region and has called for an international response. Yet those warnings were not taken seriously by the international community.
Today, the full picture has become clear, and the world is experiencing firsthand what disruptions to navigation in the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab Strait truly mean. Interruptions in shipping through these waterways have disrupted production, increased shipping costs, and driven up commodity prices.
Consumers around the world are now bearing the consequences of these disruptions and tensions, even in countries far removed from the region. This comes as no surprise given the scale of energy and trade flows that pass through these two strategic chokepoints, which together account for nearly 30 percent of the world's energy trade.
According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), an average of 21.8 million barrels per day of crude oil and petroleum products pass through the Strait of Hormuz, while 9.3 million barrels transit Bab al-Mandab daily.
The effects of these tensions and supply disruptions from the Middle East and Russia are evident in a recent International Energy Agency (IEA) report, which noted that global diesel exports in September fell by approximately 700,000 barrels per day compared with the previous year.
In Asia, the report indicated that disruptions to oil flows through Hormuz reduced refinery operations, particularly in China, India, and South Korea. Wholesale diesel prices exceeded $200 per barrel in Singapore and reached around $220 per barrel in Europe and the United States.
There is no need to dwell further on what the world now clearly understands: disruptions to energy supplies and maritime navigation spread like wildfire, eventually reaching factories, markets, and household budgets worldwide. The scale of these interconnected interests means that protecting these two straits is a responsibility that extends beyond the littoral states to all nations that benefit from them.
This raises an important question: How can this shared interest be transformed into a genuine shared responsibility, with countries collectively bearing the burden? In my view, this can be achieved through five key avenues.
The first is supporting the multinational defensive maritime coalition led by Saudi Arabia as a practical framework for sharing responsibility in safeguarding freedom of navigation and ensuring the continuity of international trade and global supply chains. Such support requires broader participation from countries that benefit from secure navigation in the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandab, and the Gulf of Aden, including the provision of naval, intelligence, logistical, and financial capabilities according to each country's capacity. In this way, shared responsibility becomes tangible protection for vessels, trade routes, and energy supplies.
In addition, countries such as China, Russia, and Türkiye can leverage their relations with Iran to press for secure navigation in Hormuz and encourage Tehran to use its influence over the Houthis to halt attacks on vessels in Bab al-Mandab and the Red Sea. Political and diplomatic influence is an important tool for protecting common interests. China has already demonstrated this when it reportedly warned Tehran, according to Reuters, that continued Houthi attacks could harm their commercial relations.
Another important avenue is addressing the sources of financing and supply that sustain these threats. This includes tracking intermediary companies used to procure missile and drone components, verifying the end users of dual-use technologies, and monitoring financial transfers linked to financing attacks.
It also requires coordination among countries from which shipments originate or through whose ports they transit, enabling the exchange of information and the prevention of supplies reaching implicated actors within established legal frameworks. Protecting vessels will remain difficult as long as these groups can continue acquiring the means to carry out their attacks. Therefore, intelligence sharing and stricter oversight of such activities are essential elements of a shared maritime security responsibility.
From this perspective, no single country can bear the cost of guaranteeing the continued flow of supplies that benefit the entire world. Nations that depend on the region's energy and trade should contribute to protecting ports, repairing damaged facilities, and helping sustain shipping operations to keep global commerce moving.
When piracy off the coast of Somalia threatened trade routes, countries from outside the region took part in protecting commercial shipping. Likewise, when energy markets were disrupted following the war in Ukraine, consuming nations helped alleviate the crisis by drawing on strategic petroleum reserves.
Just as countries share in the benefits of trade and stable supplies, they should also share the burden of protecting them. It is unreasonable for the benefits to be global while the cost of safeguarding them is treated as a purely regional concern.
All of these approaches, however, will remain little more than aspirations and good intentions unless they are translated into clear and sustained action, with each country specifying the funding, capabilities, or technical support it is prepared to provide.
Protecting maritime routes requires continued cooperation even after tensions subside and escalation is contained, in order to prevent future crises and avoid repeating the same losses whenever regional tensions re-emerge. The International Energy Agency's emergency stockpile system provides a useful example of how countries can commit to maintaining specific reserves, regularly reviewing preparedness, and participating in coordinated responses during supply disruptions.
Such cooperation could take the form of a joint committee tasked with monitoring the implementation of national contributions and addressing causes of delay, in coordination with relevant international organizations.
Finally, I believe Saudi Arabia's position is grounded in an undeniable reality: stability in this region and the security of its maritime corridors are fundamental pillars of global economic stability. Consequently, contributions from beneficiary nations to protect the Straits of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab are, in essence, investments in their own economies and the well-being of their citizens.
The time has come to share responsibility in the face of these crises.
