Egypt’s foreign minister warned last week that Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea have cost the country more than $9 billion in lost Suez Canal revenue, an economic blow now tied to broader U.S.-led efforts to reshape global trade routes.
Speaking in New Delhi, Foreign Minister Badr Abdel Aty said daily ship transits through the Suez Canal have fallen from roughly 75 vessels to fewer than 50 amid persistent assaults by Yemen’s Houthi militia, which has targeted vessels it claims are linked to Israel. The attacks have reduced traffic through one of the world’s busiest maritime arteries by about 60 percent, threatening Egypt’s primary source of foreign currency.
The Suez Canal carries roughly 12 percent of global trade. Since early 2025, global shipping giants have diverted hundreds of cargo vessels around the Cape of Good Hope, adding over a week of travel time and millions of dollars in fuel costs per voyage. President Abdel Fattah al‑Sisi said earlier this year that Egypt had suffered monthly revenue losses of roughly $800 million as a result.
During his India visit, Abdel Aty said Egypt hopes to be included in the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC)—a Washington‑ and New Delhi‑backed infrastructure initiative unveiled at the 2023 G20 Summit. The corridor aims to build a multimodal trade and energy network linking India, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, and Europe through coordinated rail, maritime, road, and digital infrastructure.
Unlike China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)—Beijing’s global program of loans and state‑financed construction contracts—IMEC is built on a multilateral investment model that blends public‑private funding among its partners, including the United States, India, the EU, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. The project encompasses a transportation network integrating port and rail systems; an energy link that includes green hydrogen pipelines and electrical interconnections; and a digital corridor expanding fiber‑optic connectivity across Eurasia.
The United States sees IMEC as part of a wider strategic realignment—a counterweight to China’s Belt and Road and a way to anchor supply chains within allied economies. By enhancing India’s export access, integrating Gulf states into diversified logistics, and linking Israeli ports to European destinations, the plan aims to reinforce a Western‑aligned trade belt stretching from Mumbai to Athens.
Under the Trump administration, IMEC has regained traction after stalling during the Gaza conflict. According to U.S. policy sources, the White House views the project as a signature element of President Trump’s renewed Middle East economic diplomacy, promoting what aides call “deal‑based regional stability.” Trump’s national‑security advisors have framed the corridor as the premier U.S. alternative to China’s influence, combining infrastructure, energy partnerships, and digital‑technology standards to advance Washington’s leadership in the region.
A joint U.S.–India statement released in February 2025 reaffirmed both countries’ commitment to the corridor as a platform for open investment, transparent governance, and shared industrial development . The administration describes IMEC as an effort to “modernize trade connectivity and secure the free flow of energy and information from South Asia through the Mediterranean.”
For Egypt, battered by reduced canal revenues and debt pressures, participation in the corridor could provide new investment lifelines. During his visit, Abdel Aty said Cairo is ready to host an industrial zone for Indian companies alongside existing Russian and Chinese facilities in the Suez Economic Zone. Yet even as it seeks inclusion, the country’s losses highlight a core vulnerability: regional instability still threatens to derail the very corridors meant to secure future prosperity.
