# Strait of Hormuz Crisis 2026: Customs Compliance Survival Guide with Maersk's William Petty \[TOP EXPERT INTERVIEW\]

An episode of [Global Trade Deciphered](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1783566127), 16 Mar 2026, 23 min.

Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2422711/episodes/18857214-strait-of-hormuz-crisis-2026-customs-compliance-survival-guide-with-maersk-s-william-petty-top-expert-interview.mp3

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we discuss how businesses might handle the compliance chaos of the Strait of Hormuz blockade—ships stalled, oil prices soaring, supply chains crumbling etc.. How are businesses dodging compliance pitfalls amid this geopolitical storm? Maersk's innovation Lead and expert, William Petty, reveals insider strategies. • Strait of Hormuz disruptions: Seafarers at risk, vessels rerouted—what's the real knock-on for your global trade ops? • COVID parallels: Bottlenecks, piracy, Suez flashbacks—are we in for another black swan era? • Compliance wake-up call: Why your supply chain, logistics, and customs teams must sync now to slash delays and costs. • Non-traditional regs exploding: CBAM carbon taxes, EU deforestation rules, US forced labor bans—ready to track geolocated trees or cotton spinners? • Tariffs • Trade fragmentation frenzy: Bilateral deals, sectoral carve-outs—navigating the spider's web of evolving tariffs and borders. • AI and tech lifelines: Shrinking the haystack with data analytics—spot misclassifications, prioritize 80/20 risks, unlock duty savings. • Digital product passports revolution: Real-time data sharing for friction-free borders—could this transform your imports forever? • 2026 trends alert: UK CBAM incoming, forced labor regs spreading—opportunities in digital corridors or more compliance headaches? William Petty, Maersk's Trade and Customs Consulting innovation Lead with 20+ years from World Economic Forum to global alliances, joins host Justin Hayden Miller to decipher it all. Global trade pros: Is your business resilient enough? Tune in for actionable hooks on supply chain disruptions, customs compliance strategies, and logistics innovation. #StraitOfHormuzCrisis #CustomsCompliance #SupplyChainDisruptions #MaerskInsights #CBAM #DigitalTrade #GlobalTradePodcast Subscribe on Apple Podcasts for more on geopolitics reshaping trade. Share if this hits your supply chain nerve! If you like the podcast, please subscribe so you don't miss any episodes and leave a rating. Also tell friends and colleagues about it so the podcast can grow. *Follow Justin on X: @JustinHaydenM or contact us by email at GlobalTradeDeciphered@gmail.com Sign up to our newsletter. (We won't spam you and will remove your email on your request.) https://substack.com/@globaltradedeciphered *Disclaimer: This podcast is simply for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not in way constitute legal, business, financial or other advice whatsoever. Should you require advice then please seek such from an appropriately qualified professional, explaining your specific circumstances.

## Chapters

- 0:00 Intro & Maersk's William Petty
- 1:20 Strait of Hormuz Crisis: Immediate Impacts
- 4:09 What Companies Should Do Now
- 7:18 Complexity & Compliance Related Disruption
- 8:27 Non-Traditional Regulations: eg. CBAM, Deforestation...
- 10:15 Trade System Fragmentation: Moving Away from Harmonization
- 14:49 Solutions
- 18:50 Future Trends

## Transcript

JUSTIN HAYDEN MILLER:
Today, I’m talking with William Petty – Maersk’s product innovation Lead in its Trade and Customs Consulting arm – who’s seen it all, from Covid bottlenecks to piracy threats. He’ll break down the immediate compliance nightmares that companies face, such as amid the events in the Strait of Hormuz, IT solutions and digitial products passports that could revolutionalise borders.
I'm Justin Hayden Miller. Welcome to Global Trade Deciphered. Deciphering the policies, trends and geopolitics reshaping global trade.
Maersk is one of the largest shipping and logistics companies in the world, and William Petty leads innovation and product development in Maersk's trade and customs consulting business. With over 20 years of experience spanning national government, private sector and international development roles, contributing to the World Economic Forum where he was deputy director of the Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation, William, welcome to Global Trade Deciphered. Pleasure Justin, good to be here. And William, it's great to have you here today. With effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz in the news, oil prices skyrocketing as new attacks have been reported on cargo ships in the region. It's affecting not just oil prices and oil supply chains, but a whole range of products right down the supply chain for companies. Ships are out of action and on and on. From a customs and trade perspective, What immediate compliance issues are companies facing because of all this?
WILLIAM PETTY:
Yeah, I mean when we look at what's happening in the straights of companies today, first it's not about the goods. We have seafarers at risk and first and foremost thinking of their safety and so on. In terms of the goods, think it's in a way it's another supply chain disruption that adds to what businesses have been facing over the past few years. vessels are getting stuck, means goods are getting stuck. They're going to take longer to get to where they're supposed to be. And there is clearly a knock-on effect to businesses. They might need to look at sourcing their goods from other origins, landing their goods somewhere that they weren't expecting them to land. So that's a kind of a supply chain and logistics complexity, but it brings... trade compliance and customs complexity as well because you need to very, very quickly make sure that you understand the new regulations that might apply to sourcing goods from somewhere new or landing goods somewhere new.
JUSTIN HAYDEN MILLER:
The challenges in the Straits of Hormuz at the moment is another thing that adds to that complexity. the direct effect on businesses, but because of what's happening in the Straits of Hormuz, ships blocked there are not in the right place at the right time, which can cause ships being out of place, out of sync, and the possibility of eventual bottleneck support, which itself creates issues for supplying goods. That's what happened with COVID. Do you see any similarity with COVID in this respect?
WILLIAM PETTY:
Yeah, definitely. And I think that's what I mean earlier in this is another challenge that is a disruption to supply chains. Businesses and international trade has always had to deal with these sorts of disruptions, but perhaps during COVID and since then, it feels like there's been a lot more disruption. You know, the disruption brought around by COVID and closing of ports. Then we had vessels stuck in the Suez Canal. We then have had piracy issues as well around the Horn of Africa or around the Red Sea for quite some time. So it's something that I think businesses have been getting used to, which has led to businesses looking at diversifying their supply chain. So I definitely see abnalogies.
JUSTIN HAYDEN MILLER:
The causes of these issues might be very, very different, but the outcome for businesses is quite similar, right?
WILLIAM PETTY:
Right, definitely. In terms of Hormuz and everything, they've got lots of very, very worried companies out there. It's creating complexities in terms of landing goods and purchasing goods in different economic areas, which itself creates new compliance obligations. In respect of all this, what do you think companies should be doing now this week on compliance matters and do you have any solutions for them? think what's really important is for customs compliance teams to be working really, really closely with their supply chain teams and logistics teams. I know that sounds really obvious, but it doesn't always happen. But obviously, know, supply chain and logistics teams are working now probably 24-7 to kind of manage the resilience of their supply chains, which as you say, you know, leads to landing goods in different places, sourcing goods from different places, taking different transport routes and so on. There is inevitably a customs element to all of that. So the crucial thing is for compliance teams to be working closely with the supply chain and logistics teams that are looking at these sorts of issues and ensuring there are kind of no nasty surprises, right? What everyone is trying to do, whether that's us as a logistics provider, whether that's exporters, importers, buyers, sellers, it's all about getting the right goods to the right place at the right time at the expected cost.
JUSTIN HAYDEN MILLER:
Indeed, there's a considerable amount of disruption festering at the moment, certainly concerning oil and gas, but which is likely soon to start affecting supply chains in other industries.
WILLIAM PETTY:
There is a huge level of disruption at the moment that is going to impact on all of those, kind of minimizing that impact is critical and customs and trade compliance is a key part of that. Minimizing the risk of delays, minimizing the risk of unexpected costs and so on. So working together internally between trade compliance, supply chain logistics and even and so on is absolutely critical, I would say, right now.
JUSTIN HAYDEN MILLER:
Yeah, and I completely agree with you. I think it's a wake-up call. I mean, think companies have had enough wake-up calls in the last couple of years, but this is certainly one. Yeah. And in order to put systems and protocols in place for these types of things, because even when this is sorted out, I'm sure there's going to be something, another black swan or another issue coming up pretty soon. And as you mentioned, I think it's a question of communication between the different departments. I worked a lot in the automotive industry. when spare parts are not available. Often they're sourced from a different country in order to keep the factory open. The problem is this is not necessarily communicated to the customs team and it creates absolute mayhem. Yeah, definitely good advice there. In fact, the normal seems to be becoming a consecutive series of black swans. In terms of trade logistics, do you see why it's happening in the Strait of Hormuz as an amplification of what companies are already facing. A pretty significant amplification, nevertheless.
WILLIAM PETTY:
Yeah, I think so. I think that from a big picture point of view in this sort of trade and customs compliance space, what I call the risk of compliance related disruption, which is basically another form of supply chain disruption. There's an increased complexity. partly caused by disruption we've been talking about, but there are other sort of causes of this as well. It's becoming harder for businesses to keep on top of their kind of compliance requirements. And there's a lot more enforcement action. The likelihood of facing compliance-related disruption risks is increasing. It all stems from increasing complexity.
JUSTIN HAYDEN MILLER:
What factors do you think contribute to that?
WILLIAM PETTY:
One is the policy space, businesses themselves. are diversifying their supply chains for multiple reasons. we're seeing enforcement is increasing. Those three factors together, I see as the things that are really making the life of trade compliance people a lot more complicated and perhaps also a lot more strategically important for businesses.
JUSTIN HAYDEN MILLER:
I know we have policy bots listening to the podcast. So tell us a little bit more about your take on the policy elements that you think are complicating things?
WILLIAM PETTY:
There are two types of policy changes that are changing this sort trade regulatory ecosystem. One is what I would call non-traditional trade regulations. For example, we have CBAM in the EU. So that's the carbon border adjustment mechanism.
JUSTIN HAYDEN MILLER:
You mentioned it before me. This is one of my gripes.
WILLIAM PETTY:
Right. Exactly. So an obligation on importers to effectively quantify their carbon emissions embedded in the goods that were produced and they're bringing into the EU. The EU deforestation regulation, forced labour regulations in the US, also I think steel and aluminium derivatives regulations in the US. These are what I would call kind of non-traditional trade regulations. The way they're designed they bring in a new layer of complexity. Previously, from a trade compliance point of view, Basically, your job is to be on top of the what are the goods, the customs classification, how much are they worth and where do they come from. But these type of new regulations require you to be on top of a lot more than just that. need to tell me that. Yeah. You take the EU deforestation regulation, for example, you're importing furniture and some of that furniture has got some wood in it. You need to be able to provide the geolocation of the trees that were cut down to go into that wood. For forced labour, for example, you need to understand who is spinning the cotton that went into the jeans that you're importing, let's say. These sorts of things are really making life more complex. It doesn't mean it's worse or better. It is just objectively more complex.
JUSTIN HAYDEN MILLER:
Isee the complexity from that perspective, just having to deal with the tax, but also a potential future complexity in that these new regulations disrupt harmonisation. If you import into a particular country, know normally I have to pay customs duties. But there are many taxes being created that are generally only applicable to particular trade areas. Carbon border taxes for Europe. And this, I see, is going to create potential trade conflicts in the future. Where the US might actually say, you know, we don't agree with the Corbem-Barda tax. want some of our companies to finding difficulties. The complexity is becoming... so difficult to manage.
WILLIAM PETTY:
Yeah, and I think you make a good point about moving away from harmonization. think uh that's the other point I would make with regards to government policy changes. On the one hand, these non-traditional trade regulations have been created that mean that we have to do very, very different things in order to comply. But there's also, objectively, more fragmentation in the trade system. Right? I think for the last 20 years or so, we've all been used to an increasing harmonization in the trade system. But in the last couple of years or so, there is objectively a fragmentation of that. As yoi say there are very specific regulations that come into place that you just don’t see elsewhere.
JUSTIN HAYDEN MILLER:
I think many of the issues that you've listed there essentially amount to, to moving goalposts.
WILLIAM PETTY:
You know, what does that all mean for business? You know, again, I think the scenario used to be as a, you know, the trade compliance team in a, in a company, you know, we need to understand basically, we need to understand the, the most favoured nation procedure and we need to understand a few preferential procedures. But now it's a complete spider's web of, of evolving regulations, bilateral arrangements, um, sectoral carve outs. Um, you know, as we said, as I mentioned with the section two thirty two derivatives, you've got a very particular complexity for certain types of products. And actually you would, you know, order does the same, cbam does the same. And so just, it's just much more difficult for businesses to, to keep on top of this, um, to reduce their risk of, um, you know, compliance issues and, you know, to make sure that they're paying the right duties, not paying more than they should, and certainly not paying less than. Less than they should. Just being on top of that, you know that that sort of. Spider's web and fragmentation is just making that a lot more a lot more difficult for businesses.
JUSTIN HAYDEN MILLER:
CBAM, the carbon border tax office, it's not actually the company itself that has the data. product might be sold to three, four, five, six companies down the chain. Countries don't necessarily see the practicalities of what they're requesting companies to do.
WILLIAM PETTY:
Yeah, I mean, think, honestly, from my personal point of view, CBAM as it stands now, is actually not about regulation. There is a clear logic to it. It does bring in a new level of complexity, but I think it's something businesses just understand they just need to adapt to. It isn't just about the emissions data. You've made the point getting hold of that emissions data and calculating it correctly is pretty complicated. We're pretty excited about how we can support businesses to do that. Customs used to be a boring issue. board members are very, very well, customs issues now.
JUSTIN HAYDEN MILLER:
Are you finding that companies are making decisions and putting solutions in place? Are they putting off decisions, holding their cards before they move?
WILLIAM PETTY:
No, that's good question. I think we've seen a period of slight freezing because there's so much complexity. But I think we've seen that move now. Within companies, the sort trade compliance is more visible and more strategic. But also I think with the public and with consumers, used to, if I used to tell people that I worked in custom space, probably someone off the street would most likely say, oh, you check passports. Right. But now you say you work at the customs space. Okay, Tariffs and, you know, documentation and queues at Dover and things like that. People, you know, it is, it is much more visible. Is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing? I mean, at least for those of us in the space, it's quite nice that the work that we do is kind of recognized as being important. It is a much more critical and visible part, day to day business certainly than it ever has been.
JUSTIN HAYDEN MILLER:
So we've discussed the problems. What solutions do you see companies having in this environment?
WILLIAM PETTY:
I guess sort of fortunately we can do more with data through technology and AI we've ever been able to do before. How do businesses keep on top of this, manage their risks of compliance, make sure they're optimizing what they're paying in terms of duties and so on. Companies need to be on top of their customs master data. These are the products that I import, I need to make sure I know everything about those products and make sure that I'm really clear on the compliance requirements of each of those products, clear on the correct classification, clear on valuation, but also looking at your transactional data. the declarations that you've submitted, that is a very rich source of data that can be analyzed to again understand what appliance risks you might have and also what opportunities you might have. They need to have access to that data, they need to own that data and they need to be able to apply analytics to it to make sure that they can understand risks they're facing and the opportunities. And also I would say the key thing businesses to do is be able to prioritize. use technology to look at your data and say, look, here's the 80-20. These are the 20 % of products, let's say, that are giving you 80 % of your risk. And let's focus on that. If you've got ten thousand items that are potentially misclassified, of course you want to look at all of them. You want to look at all of your one hundred thousand. You want everything to be right. But you've got to know. You've got to know where to start. So you've got ten thousand items that may be misclassified. Which ones are going to are giving you the greatest risk? Well, the ones that are going to give you the greatest risk are the ones where there is perhaps a differential between the classification that you're using and the correct classification. So as I said, that's why that's how it's just one example of how we see the value of, of technologies being able to focus down and identify the priorities that business
JUSTIN HAYDEN MILLER:
I really like that 80-20 idea rule. Concentrate on the highest risk elements. That's very good advice. William, what IT solutions are there out there for companies?
WILLIAM PETTY:
We see technology as a great opportunity to do what I call shrinking the haystack. Businesses can't afford to look at every single line item in absolute granularity all of the time. The way we're developing and applying technology in this space for our customers is really focused on helping them identify where their biggest risks are right now, where perhaps their biggest opportunities are right now in terms of savings. to work with our clients to strengthen a particular compliance risk or to realize perhaps a cost saving. A very simple example of that is around classification. By applying technology, you can quickly identify the products that look like they might be misclassified. We don't believe that technology and AI can give us the answer. These decisions are absolutely made by real customs experts. But the technology can shrink the haystack. With these IT solutions that we're discussing, do you consider it's creating a two-tier system, tier for top multinationals that have the money in order to invest in these systems, and on the other hand, smaller businesses that might not? um I think that may have been the case in the past, but perhaps it's increasingly less the case. With AI, for example, there's lot of technology that is becoming a lot more accessible. You know, we're obviously developing and working with partners developing really, really smart technology for these sorts of things. And we can deploy that to multiple customers. So the business themselves doesn't need to necessarily engage in a big software license or a huge, you know, IT development product. looking ahead to the rest of 2026 and beyond.
JUSTIN HAYDEN MILLER:
William, What emerging customs trends or potential policy shifts do you anticipate will be the most challenging for businesses or create opportunities for them?
WILLIAM PETTY:
Yeah, so I think that fragmentation in the trade ecosystem is here to stay. We're to continue to see plurilateral trade arrangements, bilateral trade arrangements, less harmonized, let's say, than the multilateral system we've been used to. The complexity that stems from that is probably here to stay. Also, I talked about non-traditional trade regulations. I think that's also a trend that's here to stay. We've talked a lot about CBAM in the EU. Well, UK CBAM is coming in in 2027. There are many other jurisdictions that looking at a similar thing. The EU CBAM itself is going to extend beyond the relatively small products it covers today to many, many more. We're expecting forced labor regulations that will work a little bit like the US forced labor regulations in Europe, Australia, Japan, and so on. So I think those trends that drive complexity are here to stay. I think on the other side of the coin though, what we're also seeing a lot happening in terms of governments looking at how they can facilitate trade. So how can they leverage data that is in the supply chain in a way that enables them to trust business at a level they haven't previously been able to do. And in return for that trust, deliver a of a transformational process when it comes to the border. Digital trade corridors, product passport.
JUSTIN HAYDEN MILLER:
That is something, the digital passport is something that Merck is really pushing forward, I've noticed.
WILLIAM PETTY:
Yeah, definitely. I think that is the future. Can you just explain that very, very briefly for our listeners? that is? Yeah, so basically, traditionally, and when I say traditionally, I mean the last several hundred years, administration looks at the documentation related to goods that are being imported, basically when they arrive. These days, it's a few days before. Basically at the point of arrival, They're also looking at secondhand data because they're basically looking at what has been written in a customs declaration. And although that's become more digital, that basic process hasn't really changed for several hundred years. What we're looking at now is how customs administrations can have access to data on products that are being imported, the entities that are involved in the production of those goods and the export of those goods and the import of those goods. How that can be shared with customs administrations in a different way, even in sort of semi real time so that they can perhaps deal with queries as the goods are on the water, let's say, are you sure about this classification? Let's double check that. The idea being that then at the point of arrival, the customs process has been done and the goods can move through the border friction free.
JUSTIN HAYDEN MILLER:
So it's possible there may not only be passports for people, but also for each of the goods being imported, which will facilitate the customs importing process.
WILLIAM PETTY:
Yeah, exactly.
JUSTIN HAYDEN MILLER:
So people that you speak to in the street and at parties where you tell them you're doing customs and they think you're doing passports, well, they might end up being right after all.
Well, they might, lol, but also increasingly they say, oh, tariffs. Everyone will at least understand that now.
JUSTIN HAYDEN MILLER:
Well, William, your insights have been really invaluable. Quite honestly, there are a couple of ideas there that I'll be taking away with myself as well. And thank you very much for being on the podcast.
WILLIAM PETTY:
My pleasure. It was great to talk. Very interesting.
JUSTIN HAYDEN MILLER:
Thanks for having listened to the podcast. The content of this podcast is intended only to provide an information resource of interest and does not constitute legal, tax, business or financial advice of any kind. Should you require advice, then you should engage an appropriately qualified person to provide you specific advisory services in the field. The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this podcast are my own and do not necessarily represent the views, thoughts or opinions of any law firm, nor that of any third party, other person, company or organization. Stay tuned for the next episode.

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