Trump Says Houthis Will Cease Attacks on Red Sea Shipping

Yahoo

07-05-2025

President Donald Trump said the U.S. would cease its airstrikes on the Houthis in Yemen 'effective immediately' after the Iran-supported group said they would stop attacking ships in the Red Sea.
'The Houthis have announced, to us at least, that they don't want to fight anymore. They just don't want to fight,' said President Trump during an Oval Office meeting with newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. 'And we will honor that. And we will stop the bombings. They have capitulated…we will take their word that they will not be blowing up ships anymore, and that's the purpose of what we were doing.'
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Following Trump's commentary, Oman's foreign minister Badr Albusaidi said the country had mediated a truce between the Houthis and the U.S. Neither side would target the other, including U.S. vessels in the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
However, it remains unclear if the Houthis are exclusively referring to American-flagged commercial or military ships as part of the truce. Officials for the group do not explicitly say they will stop attacking all commercial vessels in the Red Sea.
In a post on X made over an hour after Trump's claims, Houthi senior political official Mohammed al-Bukhaiti appeared to refute parts of Trump's statement.
'Our military operations in support of Gaza will not cease until the aggression against Gaza stops and the blockade on its residents is lifted, allowing the entry of food, medicine, and fuel,' al-Bukhaiti said. 'As for our attacks on the U.S., they fall within the context of the right to self-defense. If it halts its attacks on us, we will halt our attacks on it. This position also applies to Britain.'
The Houthis began their onslaught on shipping lanes after the Israel-Hamas war began, with the group saying it was in support of Palestinians.
According to al-Bukhaiti, the only way the Houthis will halt their military operations in the Red Sea is if the U.S. pressures Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to 'respect the terms of the ceasefire agreement.'
U.S. officials have not immediately confirmed Trump's assertion that the airstrikes will stop.
A senior Israeli official told Axios the U.S. didn't notify Israel in advance of Trump's announcement of a Houthi truce.
The attacks on commercial ships sailing the Red Sea have persisted since November 2023, and have essentially forced most container shipping firms to divert their ships away from the region for the past 18 months. Ocean carriers have since elected to sail around Africa's Cape of Good Hope, which adds one-to-two weeks of transit time to complete a voyage.
With the Houthi threat lingering, container shipping giants like Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd have avoided the Red Sea route and the Suez Canal. The companies have publicly stated that they will not return to the Red Sea until it is safe to do so, and until security through the passage is guaranteed.
The Houthis have not directly targeted container ships throughout 2025, but the ongoing threat they have posed to military ships has kept the industry at a distance. On top of that, war-risk insurance premiums remain elevated, which insure ocean carriers against losses sustained in the event of an attack on a vessel,
The volume of ships arriving in the Gulf of Aden, which connects to the Red Sea via the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, was 70 percent lower than 2023 levels as of April 2025, according to Clarksons Research.
For more than 50 days, the U.S. has conducted a series of airstrikes in Yemen known as 'Operation Rough Rider,' with the Pentagon claiming to hit more than 1,000 Houthi targets. The U.S. has targeted Houthi infrastructure in an attempt to deter the militant group.
The White House has previously stated that the operation would continue until freedom of navigation in the Red Sea was restored.
'This was always a freedom of navigation issue,' said Secretary of State Marco Rubio during Trump's Oval Office interview. 'You had a band of individuals with advanced weaponry that were threatening global shipping, and the job was to get that to stop, and if it's going to stop, then we can stop.'
Tensions between Yemen and Israel have ramped up in recent weeks as the future of the war-torn Gaza Strip remains uncertain.
Late Monday, Israel had launched a barrage of air attacks on Yemen's Port of Hodeidah and a nearby cement factory, a day after the Houthis fired a ballistic missile that struck close to Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport.
Israel's offensive took an even larger turn on Tuesday, with forces striking Sanaa International Airport in Yemen. The Israeli Defense Forces said the strikes fully disabled the airport. The air attack killed three people and wounded 35 others, according to Houthi-affiliated Al Masirah TV.