US-GCC trade slows further in April due to Iran war

• Shipping stalemate in Hormuz
• Sliding fuel and fertiliser sales
• Small bilateral trade ‘lumpy’

US imports from Gulf states fell in April from the previous month, as the Iran war entered its second full month and regional trade adjusted to a fragile ceasefire.

Data suggests the conflict continued to disrupt trade with shipping delays, production outages and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz weighing on commodity exports.

Sliding fuel and fertiliser sales from GCC countries to the US are likely to have driven this trend, according to Rachel Ziemba, a macrostrategy adviser in New York.

Qatar, for example, saw the value of its fertiliser exports to the US drop from a recent high of $125 million in February to $82 million in March and $32 million in April, according to bilateral trade figures the US Census Bureau released on Tuesday.

Aluminium sales from Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE to the American market also slumped.

US exports to Bahrain, Kuwait and the UAE similarly declined on a month-on-month basis, while increasing to Oman and Saudi Arabia.

In the case of Qatar, US exports more than doubled. This has been driven by soaring sales of what the Census Bureau defines as aircraft, spacecraft, arms, ammunition and their parts and accessories.

Analysts agreed it can be hard to pinpoint the exact causes of month-to-month variations in bilateral exchanges, even though the war, closure of the strait and ensuing commodity export crunch and production shut-ins in the Gulf loom large over this year’s numbers.

“There is a lag in delivery of goods,” said Ziemba. “Items that arrived in the US for much of April likely left before the war.”

Combining March and April data confirms that US exports to the region have by and large fallen because of the war and the shipping stalemate in Hormuz, according to Tim Callen, a former International Monetary Fund official who is now a visiting fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.

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Qatar remains the exception, with figures basically flat in March and April compared to the same period last year as well as the first two months of 2026.

“The only possible reason I can think of is military imports,” Callen said.

US goods purchases from the region display less uniform movements.

“They are up for Oman and Saudi Arabia, presumably because of continued oil export ability and higher prices,” Callen said. “Imports are down in the other four countries because of shipping problems.”

Overall bilateral trade between the GCC and the US is historically small, which makes it “lumpy”, Ziemba added.

“Big swings can take place when major deals come through or price trends evolve,” she said.