SerpApi.Org
President Trump said Tuesday the U.S. will “take care of things” in the Red Sea if Yemen’s Houthis impose a blockade on shipping and energy exports coming from Saudi Arabia.
“So far, it hasn’t happened, might happen, but we take care of things,” Trump said in the Oval Office, where he was hosting Lebanese President Joseph Aoun.
“If something like that happens, we take care of it. You know, we’ve done that with the Houthis before, and we haven’t heard from them in a while since we did what we did originally.”
The Houthis’ armed forces announced Monday “a maritime embargo against the criminal Saudi enemy, based on the equation of ‘an eye for an eye’, effective immediately.”
If they follow through, it risks blowing up a ceasefire the U.S. and the Houthis agreed to in May 2025, brokered by Oman, which halted Houthi attacks on American ships but did not extend to Israeli ships through the strait.
Between March and May 2025, the U.S. launched a major military operation against the Houthis, a U.S.-designated terrorist group backed and allied with Iran, in response to attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. About 15 percent of global shipping passes through these maritime routes. The Pentagon said the U.S. hit more than 1,000 targets, killing Houthi fighters and leaders, “including senior Houthi missile and UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] officials.”
“That was about 45 days of very powerful action we took against the Houthis, and we’ve had no problem with the Houthis,” Trump said Tuesday.
“They’ve had no problem with us for a long period of time, including during this conflict. I think that if there is something like that, we’ll just have to take care of business.”
The blockade threat came after a strike against the Sanaa airport in Yemen’s north, controlled by the Houthis. The internationally recognized Yemeni government in the south, which is backed by Saudi Arabia, claimed responsibility for the strike.
But the Houthis blamed Saudi Arabia for the strike, which appeared to be an attempt to prevent an Iranian plane from landing, The New York Times reported.
After the bombings, the Houthis fired at a Saudi airport in Abha.
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