18 countries among the world’s most important maritime states warned that what is happening to the maritime supply chain is not a temporary incident, but a “structural change” in global trade.

The Shipping Advisory Group, with member countries including the United Kingdom, Germany, South Korea, Canada and Singapore, wrote in a joint statement: “Shipping routes are increasingly becoming tools of leverage and risk.”

The statement said: “The closure of the Strait of Hormuz shows that when shipping supply chains are fragmented, the global economy is also fragmented.”

The group said that “hundreds of vessels” are now operating outside the frameworks of insurance, safety and transparency, and that they have built a two-layer system: “One beneath the rules, the other beneath ambiguity. The result is the weakening of both.”