In this March 2026 YouTube briefing, Lara Guevara— a supply‑chain veteran with 17 years of experience—explains how the US/Israel strikes on Iran and Iran’s retaliation between February 28 and March 1 caused an unprecedented, simultaneous shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, the Suez Canal route, and Middle‑East airspace. She details the immediate fallout for Direct‑to‑Consumer (DTC) brands that import from Asia, Europe, or the Middle East: airline cancellations (Emirates SkyCargo, KLM, Turkish Airlines), the loss of Dubai’s DXB cargo hub, ocean carrier suspensions (MSC, Maersk, CMA CGM), Jebel Ali port closure, and the imposition of war‑risk surcharges. The disruption drives freight rates and fuel surcharges up, extending transit times by 2‑4 weeks or more and threatening profit margins—especially for brands operating on 20‑30 % gross margin where a 15 % freight cost increase can erase profit. Lara walks viewers through a five‑step, 72‑hour action plan—gain visibility from forwarders, triage inventory, contact vendors, align marketing with operations, and proactively communicate with customers. She urges brands to model cost impacts, document everything, and leverage MOVE’s community and a crisis checklist for ongoing resilience. The video ends with a call to subscribe for updates.
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Between February 28th and March 1st, 2026, the world changed. The US and Israel struck Iran. Iran retaliated, and almost immediately flights stopped, ships stopped, and the global supply chain started bleeding. If you're a DTC brand importing products from anywhere in Asia, Europe, or the Middle East, this affects you directly right now. In this video, I'm going to break down exactly what happened, what it means for your supply chain, and what you need to do in the next 72 hours to protect your business. Let's go. I've been in supply chain for 17 years, enterprise, DTC, all of it, and I want to be honest with you. This situation is different from the typical disruption. This isn't a factory closure, it's not a port strike, it's not even the Houthi attacks from 2024. This is a geopolitical escalation that has simultaneously shut down the Strait of Hormuz, the Suez Canal route, and Middle East airspace, including Dubai, all three at the same time. The Strait of Hormuz alone handles roughly 20% of the world's oil. When oil prices spike, every form of transportation gets more expensive— air freight, ocean freight, last-mile delivery, even your personal expense. This is not a regional news story. It is a global supply chain event, and your margins are in the crossfire. Emirates SkyCargo suspended all flights out of the UAE immediately and put a temporary stop on all new shipments booking. KLM canceled flights to Dubai, Riyadh, and Dammam. Turkish Airlines announced cancellations across multiple Middle East destinations. Dubai's DXB Airport is a massive transit hub for Asia-to-Europe and Asia-to-US air cargo. When Dubai goes down, cargo that was connecting through there gets stranded. Backlogs build, and once they build, they take weeks to clear, and even after the airspace reopens. If you're thinking, I'll just air freight my critical stuff, check with your forwarder first whether that routing has capacity, because the capacity is extremely constrained right now. Tip: ask your forwarder specifically about northbound routes from Asia that don't pass through the Middle East. They exist. They're more expensive, but they're moving. Ocean carriers were already routing around the Red Sea because of the Houthi attacks, going around the Cape of Good Hope. Brands had already absorbed that hit. Now, on top of that, the Strait of Hormuz is closed. MSC suspended all bookings for worldwide cargo to the Middle East. Maersk suspended all Hormuz crossings. CMA CGM instructed Gulf-bound vessels to shelter. Jebel Ali, Dubai's major port, suspended operations after aerial threats and a reported fire. Jebel Ali is one of the biggest transshipment hubs in the world, and when it's down, vessel schedules get scrambled across the entire network. War risk surcharges are already being imposed. Expect freight rates to climb significantly over the next 48 weeks. For brands with shipments already on the water, especially anything routed through the Gulf, you're looking at delays of minimum 2 to 4 weeks, possibly more. Document everything and start communicating with your customers now if you have committed delivery window tied to those shipments. Your customer service is there to help you. Your landed cost, the real cost of your goods arriving at your warehouse, is made up of product cost, ocean or air freight, duties, dryage, and warehousing. Every single one of those numbers is about to move up. Rates go up, obviously, but oil price increases drive fuel surcharges cross-logistics provider, including your last-mile carrier. War risk surcharges are new line items on your invoice. Rerouting adds transit time, which can trigger demurrage and detention charges. For brands operating on 20-30% gross margin, a 15% increase in freight cost isn't a rounding error. It can erase your profit on a product line. Pull your most recent shipment invoices. Look at your freight cost as a percentage of your COGS. Now model what happens if that freight goes up to 15, 20, or 25% on your next orders. That's your exposure. Know the number. At Moov, we talk about the three-way alignment—marketing, operations, and finance—working together. Crises like this are exactly when that alignment gets tested. Step 1: Get visibility. Contact your air freight forwarder today. Ask them to pull every open shipment you have and flag any routing through the Middle East, the Gulf, or connecting through Dubai, Doha, or Riyadh. Get updated ETAs in writing. Step 2: Triage your inventory. Calculate days of inventory remaining for your top 20 SKUs at your current sales velocity. Under 30 days: emergency tier. 30 to 60 days: watch list. Over 60 days: breathing room. Step 3: Talk to your vendors. Contact them now. Ask specifically which freight forwarder is handling your open reorders and orders and whether they've been contacted about Rerouting. Step 4, align marketing. If you have Q2 launches that depend on inventory currently in transit, you need a delay scenario plan. Get marketing in the room with ops this week. Step 5, document and communicate. If you have clients, retail partners, or customers with pre-orders tied to affected shipments, communicate proactively. A delay notice before the due date builds trust. A delay discovered after damages relationship. Here's what we covered today. One, the Middle East crisis has simultaneously shut down key air and ocean freight routes. This is a global supply chain disruption. Two, air freight is constrained. Dubai is down, backlogs are building, rates will spike. Three, ocean freight is facing route suspensions, war surcharges, and Jebel Ali port closures. Delay of 2 to 4 weeks minimum. Four, your costs are moving. Model the impact on your landed cost now. 5. Your action plan: visibility, inventory triage, vendor communication, marketing alignment, proactive customer communication. Supply chain is your margin. It is your cash flow, and right now it is your competitive advantage if you move faster and smarter than the brands around you. I'm going to keep covering this as it develops. Subscribe and hit the bell. I'll be posting updates here on Instagram and in our community. If you want the full 72-hour action checklist, drop crisis in the comments and I'll send it to you directly. For those who wanted to build supply chain resilience so the next disruption doesn't catch you off guard, the link to MOVE's community is in the description. That's it for today. I'll talk to you on the next one.
