Supply Chain Uncertainty Is the New Normal

By JAXPORT Chief Commercial Officer Robert Peek

If it seems like the global supply chain has been in a constant state of disruption for the last several years, you’re not imagining it.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, businesses have not had the luxury of operating in a stable economic environment. Just as one challenge begins to ease, another emerges. The result is a global supply chain that has spent years adapting to one disruption after another — with little opportunity to fully recover in between.

The latest challenge comes from rising oil and natural gas prices associated with the conflict involving Iran and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz to most commercial vessel traffic. While only a small number of vessels calling at JAXPORT transit the Persian Gulf, the effects extend far beyond the region.

Energy prices influence nearly every part of the transportation system. Higher fuel costs increase operating expenses throughout the supply chain, including for ocean carriers, trucking companies, drayage providers and rail operators. These higher costs ultimately ripple through the economy, reducing both consumer spending and industrial demand for cargo movement.

This is only the latest chapter in a longer story.

The COVID pandemic upended global manufacturing and transportation networks. Before supply chains had fully recovered, the Russia–Ukraine war disrupted commodity markets and shipping patterns. The Israel–Hamas conflict followed, leading many carriers to avoid the Red Sea and Suez Canal in favor of longer, more expensive routes around southern Africa. At the same time, businesses adapted to new U.S. tariffs, temporary operational constraints in the Panama Canal, and now renewed instability in the Middle East.

Each of these events has been significant on its own. Together, they have fundamentally reshaped how companies think about global trade. Supply chains have repeatedly been forced to adjust before recovering from the previous disruption, creating an environment where uncertainty is no longer the exception — it is the expectation.

Before 2020, businesses generally planned around the assumption that the underlying geopolitical and economic foundations of global trade would remain relatively stable. Today, that assumption no longer holds. Geopolitical conflict, changing trade policies, transportation bottlenecks, and energy market volatility have become recurring features of the global economy rather than isolated events.

In many respects, instability has become the new normal.

That reality has also changed what customers expect from their ports and logistics partners. Capacity alone is no longer enough.