Just two days ago I stated that the U.S. had lost its war against Ansar Allah in Yemen:
The Houthi can not be defeated. Soon a U.S. ship will get hit. From there the war could easily escalate into a war against Iran. There is a good chance that the U.S. would lose it.It is high time for the Trump administration to pull back from its Yemen campaign.
Last night Trump conceded that the campaign was lost. He order the U.S. fleet to retreat:
Trump Says the U.S. Will Cease Strikes on Houthi Militants (archived)—NY Times, May 6 2025
It was unclear whether the Houthis were going to stop impeding international shipping, which was the objective of the American bombing campaign.
The United States and Houthis in Yemen reached a deal to halt American airstrikes against the group after the Iranian-backed militants agreed to cease attacks against American vessels in the Red Sea, President Trump and Omani mediators said Tuesday.
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“They just don’t want to fight,” Mr. Trump said. “And we will honor that and we will stop the bombings. They have capitulated, but more importantly, we will take their word. They say they will not be blowing up ships anymore.”But despite his claim of success, it remained unclear whether the United States had achieved its objective of stopping the Houthis from impeding international shipping after a costly seven-week bombing campaign.
The is nothing ‘unclear’ about the objective which the U.S. has obviously not achieved. The Houthi will continue to attack Israel related shipping as well as the Zionist entity itself:
The Houthis themselves stopped short of declaring a full cease-fire, saying that they would continue to fight Israel. And Houthi officials and supporters swiftly portrayed the deal as a major victory for the militia and a failure for Mr. Trump, spreading a social media hashtag that read “Yemen defeats America.”
The U.S. Navy has long run out of military targets in Yemen. Its ships have emptied their magazines. They can not replenish at sea and need to go to a friendly harbor that has the appropriate equipment (Crete, Bahrain).
Three F-18 fighter jets and some 20+ Reaper drones were lost during fighting the Houthi:
A Navy fighter jet failed to land on an aircraft carrier and plummeted into the Red Sea on Tuesday, marking the fourth major mishap involving the vessel and the third loss of a fighter jet deployed with it since the warship left home last year.
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The latest incident, reported earlier by CNN, followed the loss of another jet, an F/A-18E, in an accident aboard the Truman last week in which the aircraft tumbled overboard after sailors aboard lost control of it while towing it in the ship’s hangar bay. A third fighter jet from the Truman was shot down accidentally over the Red Sea in December by another Navy warship, the USS Gettysburg, in an incident that triggered concerns about communication among warships and fighter jets in the region.The Truman also was involved in a collision in the Mediterranean Sea in February, prompting the service to fire its commanding officer, Navy Capt. Dave Snowden.
The U.S. Navy has spent over a billion dollar on ammunition on Yemen. It lost more than half a billion in flying equipment and managed to achieve nil.
Others will take note of that record.
The U.S. could have made this deal a month ago:
A senior leader of Ansar Allah, commonly known as the Houthis, told Drop Site News that if the U.S. ends its campaign of air strikes against Yemen, Houthi forces will commit to halting all attacks on U.S. ships in the region. “We do not consider ourselves at war with the American people,” said Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of Ansar Allah’s political bureau and a longtime spokesperson for the Houthis. “If the U.S. stops targeting Yemen, we will cease our military operations against it.”
Oman was, as usual, moderating talks between the U.S. and the Houthi. Iran was helpful in that it pressed for a deal.
Trump claims that Ansar Allah will stop shooting at U.S. shipping. There was no civilian U.S. shipping in the Red Sea in the first place:
There are fewer than 200 U.S. commercial vessels. Only about 80 are engaged in global trade. The small U.S. commercial fleet compares to 5,500 active Chinese-flagged vessels.
U.S. military shipping in the area is of no interests for the Houthi unless it is used to attack them.
How much other shipping in the area will revive to its previous levels remains to be seen:
Shipping volumes in the Red Sea continue to be depressed, currently around 50% lower than 2023 figures, according to data from SEB, a Swedish bank.“The prospect of a ceasefire agreement and enhanced security suggests a likely resurgence in commercial shipping operations in the region,” shipping analysts at SEB suggested in a note to clients this morning, arguing that car carrier and container markets are projected to experience the most significant rebalancing.
There is a lot of ambiguity as the Houthi will continue to target Israel related ships. Some might be owned by Israeli entities but are sailing under some other countries flag. Other ships may be held up or fired at because they carry goods designated for Israel.
Until the war on Gaza ends, and the Houthi campaign stops, international insurance companies are likely to ask for higher premiums for any ship that wants to sail through the Red Sea. It will take months of quietness before insurance premiums and traffic through the Red Sea will come back to a normal level. Egyptian income losses from a lack of Suez Canal crossings will continue.