Trump won’t tolerate Houthi attacks, will ‘threaten’ Iran – report

“Trump will not stand for having U.S. Navy ships attacked every day by the Houthis using Iranian missiles,” says former Trump official.

By World Israel News Staff

Incoming president Donald Trump will step up American military efforts against the Houthis to curb attacks on U.S. military assets, Israel, and international shipping, according to several analysts.

Since the outbreak of the October 7th war, the Houthis have paralyzed a vital shipping lane near Yemen and launched hundreds of explosive drones and ballistic missiles at Israel.

Under outgoing President Joe Biden, U.S. campaigns aiming to deter the Houthis have failed.

But once Trump takes office, experts say, the Houthis may be forced to stop their attacks.

“President Trump likely will add the Houthis back on the [State Department’s] Foreign Terrorists Organizations list, after President Joe Biden’s wrongheaded decision to remove them, as one of his first acts of president in 2021,” Mark Dubowitz, the CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Jerusalem Post.

Re-classifying the Houthis as terrorists will allow for harsher sanctions on the group, helping cripple them economically.

It’s also likely that Trump will show a zero-tolerance policy for Houthi attacks on American military assets, which have occurred numerous times during Biden’s tenure.

“Trump will not stand for having U.S. Navy ships attacked every day by the Houthis using Iranian missiles,” Elliott Abrams, who served as the U.S. Special Representative for Iran from 2020 to 2021, told the Post.

“He will hit the Houthis harder, and he will threaten Iran that if a missile [that] Iran supplied kills an American, Iran will get hit directly.”

Trump will probably organize a coalition to stymie the terrorists’ activities, including regional powers like Saudi Arabia, who have a longstanding conflict with the Houthis.

Gulf countries, with the exception of Bahrain, have so far been reticent to join an anti-Houthi coalition because the “U.S. government refuses to give us protection and means to intercept missiles and UAVs if attacked by the Houthis,” Jonathan Schanzer, executive director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Post.

“They have been attacking US warships for months on end, not to mention firing ballistic missiles at Israel,” Schanzer added.

“We should expect Trump to reverse the Biden policy, which has been to tolerate the group’s terror activities. I would expect a much tougher policy after January 20.”

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