Chokepoint Politics and the Reordering of Global Trade

Abstract: Maritime chokepoints are often depicted as resultant vulnerabilities in global supply chains, yet today they actively shape the political and economic order in international trade. Chokepoints, such as the Panama Canal or the Strait of Hormuz, are generative forces that create new configurations of power by concentrating political authority, commercial interests, and environmental variables within narrow maritime spaces. Drawing on recent disruptions around the world (Suez Canal blockage in 2021, Panama Canal port sale in 2025, and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait Blockade in 2024), this article conceptualizes chokepoints as central political ecologies that link localized issues to broader structural transformations in international trade. This article reframes chokepoints as constitutive forces in the emerging global trading order, examining how they influence state strategies, commercial networks, and regional alignments. Using a maritime-centric perspective, this paper concludes that trade now depends on managing disruption as a normal condition, not an exception. Ultimately, the governance of chokepoints stands to shape a new phase of globalization, transitioning from a logic of seamless connectivity to one of risk tolerance and economic endurance.