Webinar replay | Global Supply Chain Architecture: Examining Red Sea’s Evolving Impact - Watch Now
The 6 Geopolitical Time Bombs Shaping Supply Chains in 2026
If 2024–2025 demonstrated supply-chain teams anything, it’s that disruptions rarely arrive one at a time. 2026 is shaping up to be a different beast: not just a single chokepoint crisis, but overlapping geopolitical and regulatory shocks that can flip trade flows, rates, and routing decisions faster than most planning cycles can cope with.
The focus on the Red Sea has understandably dominated the global shipping conversation. However, as the curtain lifts on 2026, the supply chain industry faces a growing set of "Added Complications" and long-term geopolitical risks that promise to make this year one of the most volatile in recent memory.
That was the core warning Lars Jensen, CEO at Vespucci Maritime, shared during Wakeo’s webinar with Maxime Jean, R&D Director at Wakeo. Lars summed up the mood bluntly: an “incredibly volatile 2026”, where “the US trade war and the geopolitical issues make it very hard to predict exactly which way everything is going to flow”.
A week later, the headlines are already validating the point.
And crucially, the operational answer isn’t just more visibility but faster anticipation. As Maxime put it during the webinar, the goal is to help teams “better understand what is currently happening with their shipments and also…anticipate what’s coming next”.
The Red Sea Route isn’t “back”, it’s shifting
The Red Sea route is rather less as a binary (open/closed) and more as a transition mechanism that can destabilize networks globally.
Since the webinar, Maersk announced its first structural return to the Suez/Red Sea route for its Middle East Container Line (MECL) service, starting with sailings in late January, citing improved stability. That move matters because it signals how quickly some capacity can pivot when risk perception changes, compressing transit times, reducing TEU-miles, and triggering a cascade: schedule reshuffles, equipment repositioning including vessels and containers, and (often overlooked) port-side volatility as ships “overtake” each other and arrive in bunches.
At the same time, the U.S. announced new sanctions targeting Houthi funding networks, underscoring that security and geopolitics remain entangled even if certain carriers test the corridor.
What this means operationally: a Red Sea normalization is not a smooth reversion, but a transition that will temporarily destabilize the network.
As Maxime explained: “During the transition, carriers may be tempted to raise their prices for the shorter Suez routing. Additionally, vessels routed through the Red Sea, will overtake those coming via the Cape of Good Hope. Simultaneous arrivals in European ports will suddenly increase their load, and inevitably result in heavy congestion. Then, once the network reaches a new steady state, given the massive overcapacity in terms of cumulative container capacity of the global fleet, prices are expected to collapse.”
The real story: US trade war dynamics + “secondary theaters”
During the webinar, Lars mentioned that the US trade war isn’t a single policy, but a gravity field pulling multiple issues into supply-chain consequences: Venezuela, Greenland, Panama, FMC flag-state competition, US inventory swings, and Iran.
1) Greenland: tariffs as a geopolitical pressure tool
Greenland itself isn’t a container route. Lars flagged it because the risk is trade relations, a scenario where a political escalation between the U.S. and Denmark could spill into broader EU–US retaliation and sourcing shifts.
Since then, Reuters has reported escalating rhetoric and tariff threats linked to Greenland, with EU leaders signaling pushback and emergency coordination.
In an earlier discussion before the live webinar, Lars also pushed back on a common misconception: that Greenland’s strategic relevance implies a near-term shift of Asia–Europe container flows toward the Northern Sea Route. “The Northern Sea Route is massively overhyped,” he said, noting it saw only “seven or eight” container-ship transits, around “three to four thousand TEU each”, or roughly “0.05%” of Asia–Europe volumes, even in a record year. He added that despite a brief “one week” ice-free window, a meaningful period of ice-free passage is likely still “20, 30 years into the future”.
- Supply-chain impact: even without a shipping chokepoint, tariff signaling can drive front-loading, compliance burden, and abrupt shifts in lane demand, especially for high-value, time-sensitive categories.
2) Panama Canal: less about drought headlines, more about strategic sensitivity
Lars’ point on Panama was that, from a U.S. perspective, the underlying strategic sensitivity is “completely unchanged” and could “rear its head again in terms of US demand”.
Meanwhile, the Panama Canal Authority has been upgrading how customers plan transits via LoTSA 2.0, a revamped long-term slot allocation program for 2026 cycles.
But the sensitivity isn’t only about water levels, it’s also about who controls the terminals at either end of the canal.
In a pre-webinar discussion, Lars pointed to the two Panama terminals operated by CK Hutchison’s Panama Ports Company (Balboa and Cristóbal) and how terminal ownership can quickly become a political narrative. He noted that the situation briefly looked “solved” when Hutchison agreed to sell its Panama ports stake as part of a broader ports transaction involving BlackRock and MSC/TIL, but warned that if the deal stalls, the issue can snap “back to square one”.
That risk looks tangible: the CK Hutchison–BlackRock/MSC ports deal has faced ongoing scrutiny and legal uncertainty in Panama, leaving the outcome unresolved as Panama’s Supreme Court reviews the concession’s legality.
- Supply-chain impact: Panama remains a swing factor for U.S.-bound routing decisions, especially if demand rebounds. Planning tools are improving, but geopolitics can still inject uncertainty into who gets predictable access and at what cost.
3) FMC “flag state competition”: regulation as a capacity shock
This is one of the most under-discussed 2026 risks: regulation that changes the economics of operating into the U.S. market.
During the webinar, Lars noted the FMC’s work on “unfair flag state competition”, anticipating “new US rules… creating significant turmoil… [in the] second half of 2026”. The FMC’s flags-of-convenience investigation is real and advancing, with industry watching closely.
- Supply-chain impact: if rules tighten around flagging practices or operating conditions, shippers can see fast ripple effects, from rates, vessel redeployment, to reduced flexibility on certain services.
4) Potential U.S. inventory rebound: demand flips amplify everything
Lars also highlighted a scenario where inventory drawdowns reverse: “we might actually see a rebound… [which] changes supply and demand substantially”.
