Trump says the US will stop bombing Yemen’s Houthis after rebels say they’ll stop targeting ships
Trump says the US will stop bombing Yemen’s Houthis after rebels say they’ll stop targeting ships
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he’s ordering a halt to nearly two months of U.S. airstrikes on Yemen’s Houthis, saying the Iran-backed rebels have indicated that “they don’t want to fight anymore” and have pledged to stop attacking ships along a vital global trade route.
“We’re going to stop the bombing of the Houthis, effective immediately,” Trump said at the start of his Oval Office meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
That likely means an abrupt end to a campaign of airstrikes that began in March, when Trump promised to use “overwhelming lethal force” after the Houthis said they would resume attacks on Israeli vessels sailing off Yemen in response to Israel’s mounting another blockade on the Gaza Strip.
At the time, they described the warning as affecting the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Arabian Sea.
Trump said the Houthis had indicated to U.S. officials that “they don’t want to fight anymore. They just don’t want to fight. And we will honor that, and we will stop the bombings.”
His announcement came the same day that Israel’s military launched airstrikes against the Houthis that it said fully disabled the international airport in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa. Israel’s attacks were its second round of airstrikes on targets in Yemen in retaliation for a Houthi missile strike Sunday on Israel’s international airport.
A U.S. official said the administration had not notified Israel of the agreement with the Houthis before Trump talked about it publicly.
Israel, according to this official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private diplomatic talks, was irked by the unexpected news — particularly because the Houthis have continued to launch attacks on Israel proper and other Israeli targets.
Israel does not appear to be covered by the U.S.-Houthi agreement.
Appearing before reporters again later Tuesday, this time for the swearing-in of senior adviser and special envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump was asked about the possibility that the Houthis would continue to attack Israel and responded, “I don’t know about that, frankly.”
“But I know one thing, they want nothing to do with us,” Trump said. “And they’ve let that be known through all of their surrogates and very strongly.”
Trump calls ending airstrikes ‘positive’
In his comments during the earlier meeting with Carney, Trump said the Houthis had “capitulated but, more importantly, we will take their word that they say they will not be blowing up ships anymore. And that’s what the purpose of what we were doing.”
“I think that’s very positive,” Trump added. “They were knocking out a lot of ships.”
Asked how the Houthis had communicated that they were looking to stop being targeted by U.S. bombs, Trump offered few details, saying only with a chuckle that the information came from a “very good source.”
Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi, confirmed that the U.S. bombing campaign was ending, posting on X that discussions involving the U.S. and Oman, as well as negotiators in Yemen, “have resulted in a ceasefire agreement between the two sides.”
“In the future, neither side will target the other, including American vessels, in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait, ensuring freedom of navigation and the smooth flow of international commercial shipping,” he wrote, calling the agreement a “welcome outcome.”
In a statement, the Houthis said that its position toward Gaza hadn’t changed and its “initial understanding” with the U.S. would not impact its support for the Palestinians. It wasn’t clear in the statement whether it was on board with the agreement with the U.S.
Costs of U.S. operation against the Houthis
The costs of the U.S. munitions used against Houthi rebel targets in Yemen in daily attacks since March 15 have totaled more than $750 million, another U.S. official said. The Trump administration has dropped more than 2,000 munitions on more than 1,000 targets, according to the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide additional details on the strikes.
The total is only a fraction of the total costs of the operation. It doesn’t account for the costs of operating two aircraft carriers, their accompanying warships or the flight hours of the aircraft.
It also doesn’t include the Houthis destroying seven U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drones, at a cost of more than $30 million apiece, or the loss of an F/A-18 fighter jet and tug from the carrier USS Harry S. Truman when it maneuvered to avoid a Houthi missile and the jet fell off the carrier.
Despite Trump’s framing of the deal as a way to reopen the Red Sea to commercial shipping without fear of Houthi attack, “the Houthis have not fired on a commercial ship since December,” Gregory Brew, a senior analyst with the Eurasia Group risk-analysis firm, said on X.
“They are likely, however, to continue shooting at Israel,” Brew noted.
“As to the Houthis continuing to attack Israel – they do so at Iran’s own peril,” Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on social media.
Houthi attacks on shipping
The Houthis had been waging persistent missile and drone attacks against commercial and military ships in the region in what the group’s leadership has described as an effort to end Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
From November 2023 until January 2025, the Houthis targeted more than 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two of them and killing four sailors. That has greatly reduced the flow of trade through the Red Sea corridor, which typically sees $1 trillion of goods move through it annually.
The Houthis paused attacks in a self-imposed ceasefire until the U.S. launched a broad assault against the rebels in mid-March.
Those strikes Trump had ordered were similar to ones carried out against the Houthis multiple times by the administration of his predecessor, Democratic President Joe Biden.
The Trump administration actions gained a higher profile in the public consciousness when The Atlantic revealed that Hegseth had texted sensitive plans for a military strike against the Houthis on a group chat in the messaging app Signal that mistakenly included the magazine’s editor-in-chief.
Trump stood by Hegseth and downplayed the breach as a “glitch.” But national security adviser Mike Waltz, who created the group chat on Signal, left his post last week and has been nominated by Trump to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
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Associated Press writers Matthew Lee, Tara Copp and Ellen Knickmeyer in Washington contributed to this report.
By WILL WEISSERT
Associated Press
