U.S. Imports from Hormuz-affected ports “collapsed” in May as the closure of the key shipping strait hit commodity flows, according to a report from supply chain software provider Descartes Systems Group.
By the numbers, total U.S. imports departing from Hormuz-affected ports1 fell from 1.5M metric tons in May 2025 to just 100,591 metric tons in May 2026, a decline of 93.2% year over year.
Descartes defines Hormuz-affected ports as those where the country of departure (not country of origin) is reliant on the Strait of Hormuz for shipping activity; a list which includes Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia.
For a point of comparison, that decline was far larger than the typical monthly swings observed over the prior 12 months. From May 2025 through February 2026, year-over-year changes ranged from a decline of 27.7% to an increase of 26.2%. March and April showed deeper declines of 33.0% and 34.7%, respectively, suggesting that import flows may have already been weakening before the full impact of the closure appeared in the data.
The category most affected was Mineral Fuels, Mineral Oils and Products of Their Distillation (HS27), the primary trade category under the Harmonized System (HS) for energy-related commodities (including crude oil and refined petroleum products, as well as petroleum gases such as LNG and propane, petroleum coke, bitumen, lubricating oils, and other mineral fuel products).
