The Trump administration announced a ceasefire agreement with the Yemen-based Houthis nearly a month ago, and while attacks have stopped in the Red Sea, the group’s ambition and arsenal, albeit depleted, remain, according to Mike Brest of The Washington Examiner
Brest added citing Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, saying “President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth abruptly declared a U.S. victory on May 6, after a seven-week campaign in which U.S. forces hit more than 1,000 Houthi targets across Yemen, but the Houthis continued to operate in the country, and they’ve been continuing to mobilize and resupply. So they’re not inactive, and there’s still plenty of threat remaining.”
Brest also cited Brian Carter, an expert with the American Enterprise Institute, saying: ”the Houthis “will rebuild their arsenal, and that is a given.”
According to Wolf-Christian Paes, a senior fellow for Armed Conflict at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Trump said in announcing the ceasefire that the Houthis have agreed to stop firing missiles and drones at commercial vessels transiting the Red Sea, off Yemen’s coasts, but they hadn’t done so since December anyway,
Paes tools Brest: ”From a political perspective, this is a win [for the Houthis], and they celebrate it as such, and if you look at the media, they say, ‘Well, we took on the United States, the biggest military power in the world, and we’re still here to tell the story,’ and if you’re in their strategic position, that alone is a win.”
When the Houthis attacks began, shipping companies and insurers were put in the position to decide between continuing sailing through the Red Sea — a much shorter, cheaper, and more dangerous route — or avoiding it by taking the longer voyage around the entire African continent. Many companies chose the latter option, and those that did are cautiously optimistic about the ceasefire.