July 15, 2026 — Global shipping rates continue to be high as the ongoing conflict between the U.S. and Iran drives up costs, and the latest attacks by Iran on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz could cause more issues.
Trans-Pacific shipping rates appeared to moderate in early July, as spot rates for certain major routes stayed relatively flat after months of steady increases, according to shipping rate indexing and analysis firm Xeneta.
March 2, 2026 — U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran have had an immediate effect on global trade patterns as both air and ocean routes in the region have closed.
FreightWaves reported ocean shipping lines have “fled” the Strait of Hormuz, which is the narrow route between Iran, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. Iran announced it planned to “close” the strait, according to media reports, which was followed by reports of attacks on ships.
October 12, 2023 — U.S. imports have been increasing month over month since February, and according to Descartes Systems Group, were up again in September.
Approximately 39.3 percent of total exports to the U.S. were from China, up 4.2 percent from August. The September import figure reached the highest monthly total since August 2022.
April 5, 2016 — An international team of researchers has identified a new virus that attacks wild and farmed tilipia, an important source of inexpensive protein for the world’s food supply. In work published this week in mBio, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, the team clearly shows that the Tilapia Lake Virus (TiLV) was the culprit behind mass tilapia die-offs that occurred in Ecuador and Israel in recent years. The work also provides a foundation for developing a vaccine to protect fish from TiLV.
“Tilapia is one of the most important fish industries worldwide,” says Eran Bacharach, a molecular virologist at Tel Aviv University in Israel and one of the lead researchers on the study. “Moreover, because they eat algae, they are ecological gatekeepers for freshwater and they are an inexpensive, important source of protein in poorer countries.”
The tilapia industry is valued at US $7.5 billion each year. Various countries in Asia and South America are the largest tilapia producers and the United States is the largest importer, consuming 225,000 tons of these fish each year.
April 4, 2016 — Israel on Sunday expanded the Palestinian fishing zone off the southern portion of Gaza’s coast to nine nautical miles from six, allowing fishing in areas that had been off limits for a decade.
Palestinian officials welcomed the decision, which they said applied to about 60 percent of Gaza’s Mediterranean coastline.
“I can see hundreds of fishermen and boats — we are excited,” said Zakaria Baker, the Gaza-based head of the fishermen’s committee of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees. He spoke by telephone from the small seaport in Gaza shortly before 3 p.m., when the expansion was scheduled to take effect.