Chelsey Dulaney

So pretty much everything we have in our lives is transported to us by ship, by truck.

All of those prices go up whenever fuel prices go up.

Yes, most of the world will see inflation rise because of this, especially import dependent countries like Japan.

China is the largest crude importer in the world.

They're seeing higher energy prices.

Europe in particular depends quite a lot on imported energy for about 60% of its energy supply.

So all of these countries are seeing energy prices go up and that is expected to drive up inflation and that is expected to contract growth.

It's probably no surprise that the Gulf is the most exposed part of the world to this.

Obviously, a lot of these countries in the Gulf are major energy exporters, but they can't actually sell it because the ships are getting attacked in the Strait of Hormuz.

Their facilities are getting attacked.

So a lot of them have shut down production or drastically pared it back.

which means they actually can't capitalize on this rise in energy prices at all.

And this will have an economic impact for economies in the Gulf.

If this war is brief, they could see their economies contract by about 2% this year, according to Capital Economics.

But if this drags on, which increasingly looks like it will,

that could move to a 15% contraction, which is quite dramatic.

And one of the other areas where the Gulf is very vulnerable is on tourism.

Right now, that's ground to a halt.

Flights have been canceled.

And so tourism economics is now expecting that international visitors to the Middle East could fall by as much as 30% this year.