Posidonia 2026: shipping’s new currency is not freight. It is resilience
The industry has a new consensus word. What nobody is saying out loud is what it costs — and who pays when freight rates can no longer carry the weight
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GeoTrends Team
Decks and Deals Weekly #45
Between 24 and 31 May 2026, global shipping markets ran on contradiction: a peace deal nobody signed, a VLCC war premium in freefall, a BDI rebound nobody expected, and asset prices that simply refused to care
Hormuz closed. Frankfurt tightens. Who pays the ECB rate hike bill?
Yannis Stournaras says he wishes the ECB did not have to act. It probably will anyway — and European shipping will absorb costs it neither created nor controls
Q1 2026 container shipping Part II: ZIM and CMA CGM close the structural case
ZIM lost $86 million. CMA CGM lost three-quarters of its net income. The Q1 2026 container shipping season has closed, and the two final reports confirm Part I’s diagnosis
Decks and Deals Weekly #44
Between 17 and 23 May 2026, global shipping ran on four clocks: Trump halted Iran strikes, Brent dropped 5%, the BDI rally reversed, tankers softened, and containers climbed into an early peak
The future has no flag: the U.S.–China rivalry beyond the hype
Every few years, a confident essay declares the U.S.–China rivalry already settled in America’s favor. The claim feels reassuring. It also misreads where real power now grows
The Eastern Mediterranean’s new map: the corridors are slow, the claims are not
A bipartisan U.S. bill naming Greece, Cyprus, Israel, and Egypt has gained momentum as Türkiye answers with rival corridors, maritime claims, and a Blue Homeland bill — while infrastructure remains unfinished and legal geography hardens across the Eastern Mediterranean
Decks and Deals Weekly #43
Between 10 and 16 May 2026, the BDI broke 3,195 mid-week before a Friday correction, MR Atlantic earnings collapsed 60–75%, two more ships were attacked at Hormuz, Hapag-Lloyd swung to a Q1 loss, and Trump landed in Beijing to ask Xi for help reopening the strait that has shaped freight markets for ten weeks
Thucydides’ Trap and why trade fuels U.S.–China rivalry
Economic interdependence, once seen as a guarantor of peace, has become a vector of U.S.–China competition. This analysis traces the systemic anxieties driving the rivalry — and locates Europe within them
Q1 2026 container shipping: volumes return, pricing power does not
The Q1 2026 container shipping season produced one verdict. Volumes returned. Pricing power did not. The Strait of Hormuz has been quietly turned into a line item