What are the implications of Trump's decision to reclassify the Houthi militia as a foreign terrorist organization?

The White House announced that US President Donald Trump has redesignated Yemen’s Houthi group as a “foreign terrorist organization.” The move will impose tougher economic sanctions than those imposed by the Biden administration on the Iran-aligned group in response to its attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and on US warships.

Supporters of the move say it is too little too late, though some experts say it could have repercussions for anyone seen as aiding the Houthis, including some aid organizations.

The White House said in a statement that “Houthi activities threaten the security of American civilians and personnel in the Middle East, the safety of our closest regional partners, and the stability of global maritime commerce.”

The Houthis, who control most of Yemen, have carried out more than 100 attacks on ships sailing in the Red Sea since November 2023, saying they were acting in solidarity with Palestinians over Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. They have sunk two ships, seized another and killed at least four sailors.

The attacks have disrupted global shipping, forcing companies to reroute to longer, more expensive journeys around southern Africa for more than a year. The group has targeted the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, which are connected by the narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a chokepoint between the Horn of Africa and the Middle East.

Under the Biden administration, the U.S. military has sought to intercept Houthi attacks to protect commercial traffic, and has carried out periodic strikes to degrade the Houthis’ military capabilities. But it has not targeted the group’s leadership.

Early in his presidency in 2021, Joe Biden dropped Trump’s terrorism designations to address humanitarian concerns inside Yemen. In response to the Red Sea attacks, Biden designated the group as a “specially designated global terrorist organization” in 2024. But his administration has refrained from implementing the more stringent foreign terrorist organization designation.

The British charity Oxfam believes that this move would exacerbate the suffering of Yemeni civilians, and disrupt vital imports of food, medicine and fuel.

“The Trump administration knows these consequences but has chosen to move forward anyway, and will bear the responsibility for what follows,” Scott Paul, Oxfam America’s director of peace and security, said in a statement.

David Schenker, who was assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs in the first Trump administration, said Trump's move was a clear early step to push back against what he described as one of Iran's leading proxy forces in the Middle East.

“While the redesignation is unlikely to have a positive impact on the Houthis’ behavior, the action indicates that the new administration is not seeking to induce the Iranians to negotiate through persuasion,” Schenker added.

The Trump administration said the United States would work with regional partners to degrade Houthi capabilities, deny them resources, and “end their attacks on American personnel and civilians, American partners, and shipping in the Red Sea.”

The White House said the designation would also lead to a broad review of UN partners, NGOs and contractors operating in Yemen.

The White House added that “the President will direct USAID to end its relationship with entities that have paid money to the Houthis, or that have opposed international efforts to confront the Houthis while turning a blind eye to Houthi terrorism and abuses.”

The Houthis have indicated they have scaled back their attacks in the Red Sea following a multi-phase ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas. The group also released the crew of the merchant ship Galaxy Leader more than a year after seizing their Bahamian-flagged vessel off the Yemeni coast.

The Israeli threat to the Houthi group is likely to grow in the future.

International researchers tell VOA that Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi group appears well positioned to protect its leaders from retaliatory strikes that Israel has recently threatened.

Israel also faces its own challenges in potentially engaging in targeting Houthi leaders from a distance, but these researchers say the Israeli threat to the Houthi group is likely to grow in the future.

Israel has carried out five long-range airstrikes on Houthi infrastructure and other targets in Yemen since July 2024, in response to the Houthis launching hundreds of drones and missiles as part of a proxy war waged by Iran against Israel in October 2023.

The Houthis have used Iranian-supplied missiles to attack cargo ships in the Red Sea. After the latest Israeli raid in Yemen on January 10, 2025, Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a video warning to Houthi leaders, saying that Israel “will hunt you down” — repeating his threat to the Houthi leadership.

“I don’t think the Israeli threats have changed the behaviour of the Houthi leaders much,” says Wolf Christian Pais, a researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“Since 2015, the Houthis have been fighting Saudi and Emirati forces that have tried to target their leadership, which has made them more security-conscious,” Pace added. “The Houthis have rarely met UN or other foreign visitors in person or given interviews to journalists.”

Eli Karmon, a researcher at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Israel, said Houthi leaders appear to have tightened those precautions in response to recent developments, including five Israeli strikes on Yemen, dozens of U.S.-led strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen since January 2024, and Israeli attacks on Iranian proxy leaders elsewhere in the region.

“After the first Israeli airstrike in Yemen on July 20, 2024, Iran, the Houthis’ patron, held an inauguration ceremony for its new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, and the Houthis did not travel to Iran for the ceremony,” Karmon noted. “Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh, another Iranian proxy leader, did travel to the Iranian capital for the inauguration ceremony, and was assassinated in an Israeli strike.”

April Longley Alley, a researcher at the US Institute of Peace, believes the Houthis are likely to be skeptical of the use of transmission technology, especially after Israel used the communications equipment to attack Hezbollah in September 2024, first blowing up thousands of fake pagers and then hundreds of fake walkie-talkies it had secretly delivered to the Lebanese terrorist group.

After the attack on the pager, Israel assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike on his stronghold in southern Beirut, giving the Houthis an additional reason to bolster the group’s security of leadership. In addition to the Houthi stronghold in Saada, the group has a political leadership that runs an internationally unrecognized authority in Sanaa, called the Supreme Political Council.

Houthi tactics to protect their leaders are insufficient

The researchers say that Houthi political leaders and spokesmen regularly appear in public places in Sanaa, but usually in areas where many civilians are present, giving these officials a human shield from potential airstrikes. But the researchers said that the Houthis’ tactics to protect their leaders from attack also have their drawbacks.

“Houthi military leaders will be very suspicious of the use of phones, and this will likely make it more difficult and time-consuming for them to exchange messages between Saada and Sanaa,” Longley explained.

Houthi military leaders risk losing their relevance to running their regime if they are cut off from electronic communications for extended periods, says Ari Heistein, an Israel-based researcher at the Counter Extremism Project. “It is more difficult to run a country of over 32 million people with serious problems than to run it in a remote environment,” she says.

The Houthis are more dangerous to Israel than Hezbollah

Researchers believe that striking Houthi leaders is more difficult for Israel than striking Hezbollah leaders and other Iranian-backed groups near its border because Yemen is more than 2,000 kilometers away.

This distance requires several hours of flight for Israeli warplanes to reach their targets, compared to minutes for the same warplanes to reach neighboring lands.

They added that Israel lacks in Yemen the same kind of human intelligence sources that it established in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories before the start of the recent conflict, when it viewed Yemen as a relatively low threat.

If the ceasefire in Gaza holds and the Houthis refrain from firing more rockets at Israel, says Karmon, the counterterrorism researcher, he expects Israel to focus on plugging what he calls a “huge” intelligence gap in Yemen.

He added that Israel could use long-range drones, satellites, human resources and intelligence sharing with the United States and regional partners to do so.

Israel will likely use its September 2024 surprise attacks on Hezbollah, which took years to plan, as a model for dealing with threats from Yemen, Heinstein adds.

“If the Houthis calm down for a while, the next time they start causing trouble, especially to Israel and international shipping, Israel will likely have a plan to eliminate their leadership,” Hesten concluded.

• Source: European Centre for Counterterrorism and Intelligence Studies