Tim Clark’s call for manufacturers to establish operations in Dubai reflects a broader UAE strategy to localise aircraft production, expand maintenance capacity and strengthen the aviation systems supporting trade, food security and economic growth.
The struggle over the Strait of Hormuz and the southern Red Sea is entering a new phase. Iran and the Houthis are no longer focused only on disrupting commercial traffic. Both are exploring how control over strategic waterways might be converted into a system of governance: setting conditions for passage, collecting revenue and deciding which vessels receive preferential access.
Oman has proposed a cooperative mechanism for Hormuz based on joint management and voluntary industry contributions. Iran has rejected the proposed division of authority and is seeking a larger operational role. At the Bab al-Mandab, the Houthis are reportedly considering fees for ships crossing the southern Red Sea after declaring a blockade of Saudi ports and claiming repeated attacks on Saudi-linked tankers.
The immediate question is not whether either proposal becomes fully operational. It is whether military coercion is beginning to create new negotiating rights over maritime corridors that international shipping has long treated as open routes.
Main briefing
Maritime governance
The Omani and Houthi proposals are fundamentally different, but they point towards the same strategic contest: who governs access to the Middle East’s most important maritime passageways?
Oman’s proposal for Hormuz is intended to institutionalise cooperation. The mechanism would reportedly involve joint Iranian-Omani management and voluntary contributions from shipping companies towards navigational safety, environmental protection and search-and-rescue services.
The concept draws on the cooperative framework used in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore, where coastal states, shipping users and international partners support the safe operation of a heavily travelled waterway.
The Omani model is designed to distinguish payment for services from payment for passage. Ships would contribute to maintaining a navigational system rather than pay a compulsory toll for permission to transit.
Iran has rejected the proposed 50–50 division. Tehran argues that it should exercise greater control over inbound and outbound traffic and has indicated that the Strait cannot simply return to the pre-war operating model.
The disagreement is therefore not merely technical. It concerns sovereignty, recognition and whether control created during conflict can be preserved after traffic resumes.
The reported Houthi proposal moves in a more coercive direction. Regional sources say the group is considering fees for commercial vessels crossing the southern Red Sea, potentially administered through a new maritime authority.
Chinese-linked shipping could reportedly receive exemptions, immediately giving the system a geopolitical rather than universal character.
A selective fee regime would allow the Houthis to differentiate among vessels by ownership, flag, destination, cargo or political alignment. Passage would remain technically possible, but access could become negotiated, priced and conditional.
Enforcement comes before administration
The fee proposal follows an effort to demonstrate that the Houthis can enforce their declared restrictions.
On 28 July, the group claimed that it targeted the Saudi-flagged chemical and products tanker NCC Ghazal with ballistic missiles after the vessel allegedly ignored warnings. The Houthis said the tanker was forced to retreat.
UK Maritime Trade Operations separately reported that the master of an unidentified tanker near Jizan heard an explosion, although it did not identify the vessel or attribute the incident.
The claim has not been independently verified. Nevertheless, NCC Ghazal was described as the fourth Saudi-linked tanker targeted since the blockade was announced.
The operational message is clear: restrictions are declared, non-compliant vessels are threatened or attacked, and the resulting enforcement record can then support a claim to regulate passage.
The proposed authority would not create Houthi control from nothing. It would be intended to formalise and monetise control the group claims it has already established through force.
Power & Corridors assessment
The region is moving from a contest over freedom of navigation towards a contest over the terms of navigation.
Oman is attempting to build legitimacy first: cooperative administration, voluntary funding and defined maritime services.
Iran is seeking to turn its geographic and military leverage into a larger recognised role in Hormuz. The Houthis are taking the opposite route, establishing coercive credibility before constructing an administrative mechanism around it.
The likely objective is not permanent closure. A controlled flow can generate more leverage than a complete shutdown. Selective access allows political exemptions, commercial pressure, revenue collection and the continuing threat of escalation without eliminating the corridor’s economic value.
For Saudi Arabia, the two theatres are inseparable. Hormuz constrains the kingdom’s Gulf-facing energy system, while the Houthis threaten the Red Sea alternative and access through the Bab al-Mandab. Pressure at both gateways reduces the protective value of export diversification and forces operators, insurers and buyers to price Saudi supply chains as a connected regional system.
Operational indicators
What to watch
Houthi fee structure
Whether the proposal develops into published rates, designated collection channels or a formalised clearance process.
Selective exemptions
Whether Chinese or other politically favoured vessels receive explicit safe-passage guarantees.
Iran-Oman negotiations
Whether the parties narrow their disagreement over route control, revenue and the division of operational authority.
Saudi tanker behaviour
Further turnarounds, altered routes or changes in port calls following Houthi warnings.
Insurance response
Whether underwriters treat proposed fees and selective clearance as an additional layer of war-risk exposure.
International reaction
Whether naval coalitions and user states challenge the emerging systems or quietly accommodate them to preserve traffic.
The connection
Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab should not be read as separate maritime crises. They are two fronts in an emerging struggle to convert disruption into authority.
The sequence is increasingly visible: make a corridor unsafe, prescribe new conditions for movement, demonstrate the ability to punish non-compliance and then offer a mechanism through which passage can be purchased, negotiated or politically allocated.
The result may not be closed waterways. It may be something more durable and commercially disruptive: corridors that remain open, but no longer neutral.
Dean Mikkelsen is Founder and Editorial Director of Power & Corridors. Based in Abu Dhabi, he focuses on geopolitical risk, maritime security, trade corridors, energy, logistics and critical infrastructure.
