John Jefferson
President Trump re-designated the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) on Wednesday, four years after his first administration made an identical move.
In an executive order signed on Wednesday, Trump said that the terrorist group “threaten[s] the security of American civilians and personnel in the Middle East, the safety of our closest regional partners, and the stability of global maritime trade.”
“Supported by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force (IRGC-QF), which arms and trains terrorist organizations worldwide, the Houthis have fired at U.S. Navy warships dozens of times since 2023, endangering American men and women in uniform,” the order noted.
Trump also documented that “numerous” attacks that the terrorist group has conducted over the years, including “multiple attacks on civilian airports in Saudi Arabia, the deadly January 2022 attacks on the United Arab Emirates, and more than 300 projectiles fired at Israel since October 2023.”
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“The Houthis have also attacked commercial vessels transiting Bab al-Mandeb more than 100 times, killing at least four civilian sailors and forcing some Red Sea maritime commercial traffic to reroute, which has contributed to global inflation,” the order added.
Trump administration designated the Houthis as an FTO in January 2021. In a Wednesday press release, the White House noted that the Biden administration immediately reversed it.
“As a result of the Biden administration’s weak policy, the Houthis have fired at U.S. Navy warships dozens of times, launched numerous attacks on civilian infrastructure in partner nations, and attacked commercial vessels transiting Bab al-Mandeb more than 100 times,” the White House said on Wednesday.
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“The Executive Order directs the Secretary of State, in consultation with others, to recommend the re-designation of the Houthis within 30 days.”
Though the Biden White House removed the FTO designation in January 2021, Biden did name the Houthis as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) entity last week. That designation is considered a lower grade than an FTO.
Then-State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller defended the move in a press conference, claiming that the Houthis recently launched attacks on cargo ships in the Middle East – though the group has targeted commercial ships for years.
“The Houthis were procuring military equipment long before that designation and they continued to procure it in the year since,” Miller explained. “What’s changed as we have seen them launching attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea, something that wasn’t the case in 2021. And that’s why we decided it was important to take this step. “
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