US signals shift in Yemen, holds talks with Houthis over Red Sea shipping

American officials sat down with Houthi leaders over the weekend at the US embassy in Muscat, Oman, and came away with something that looked like a deal: the Iran-backed militant group promised that attacks on Red Sea shipping would spare American vessels. Only Saudi-linked cargo would be targeted, the Houthis said, a distinction rooted in their view that Saudi Arabia's blockade of Yemen justified the strikes. The meeting, now confirmed, explains a puzzling shift in the Trump administration's public posture—condemning the Houthi advance along Yemen's western coast as a threat to freedom of navigation while simultaneously refusing to send military support to Saudi Arabia.

The timing matters. Last week, Houthi forces seized large stretches of territory along the Red Sea coast in what amounted to a lightning offensive. Saudi Arabia, which has been fighting the Houthis for years, expected American backing to push them back. Instead, the US chose a different path. Vice President JD Vance confirmed on Monday that direct contact with the Houthis was happening. The decision reflects a calculation that the US is already stretched thin fighting Iran, which backs the Houthis, and that a new military commitment in Yemen would only deepen that entanglement.

Nabeel Khoury, a former deputy US ambassador to Yemen, described what emerged from the talks as a "kind of tacit understanding." The Houthis, he explained, were essentially telling Washington: American ships and international commerce will move freely through the Red Sea. Saudi vessels and Saudi oil tankers, by contrast, remain fair game. It is a narrow but consequential distinction—one that allows the US to avoid direct conflict with the militant group while maintaining plausible distance from their campaign against Riyadh.

The refusal to intervene has left Saudi Arabia in a difficult position. Without American military support, the kingdom faces a choice between pursuing diplomatic negotiations with the Houthis over Yemen's future governance or attempting to build a regional alliance with Pakistan and Turkey to mount a military response. On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia claimed that the Houthis had fired a drone at Mecca, Islam's holiest city, and that Saudi air defenses had destroyed it near the sacred shrines. The claim drew swift condemnation from the UN-recognized Yemeni government in Aden, the 57-nation Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and Pakistan's prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, who called it a "dastardly and heinous" attack.

The Houthis rejected the accusation entirely. Their deputy foreign minister, Abdul Wahid abu Ras, dismissed it as "the lie of the century" and turned the accusation back on Saudi Arabia, accusing the kingdom of desecrating the holy sites through its own actions. The Houthi negotiating team's head, Mohammed abdul Salam, countered that his forces had shot down a Saudi F-15 fighter jet near Marib and struck an Aramco facility in the Red Sea port of Yanbu, framing these as warnings against believing Saudi propaganda. No independent verification of either claim has emerged.

Meanwhile, the geopolitical landscape is shifting in ways that extend far beyond Yemen. Israeli officials leaked details of a secret military meeting held in Germany last week, organized by the head of US Central Command, Admiral Brad Cooper. The gathering brought together military chiefs of staff from Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, and Egypt—the first such coordinated meeting since the US and Israel began military operations against Iran six months ago. Israel, once a target for Houthi attacks, is now offering to intervene on Saudi Arabia's behalf in Yemen.

At the UN Security Council, Russia signaled a subtle shift in its position, beginning to move away from its previous stance that only the Aden-based government held legitimacy inside Yemen. In Beijing, Iran's foreign minister met with his Chinese counterpart to discuss plans for controlling the Strait of Hormuz, which remains closed due to competing Iranian and American blockades. China, the world's largest importer of Iranian oil, is pushing for a settlement and resisting any expansion of US secondary sanctions that would penalize countries trading with Iran. Oil prices have climbed above $100 a barrel, and a key Saudi pipeline remains shut following a bombing. The Red Sea, once a straightforward shipping corridor, has become a proxy battleground where the interests of Washington, Riyadh, Tehran, Beijing, and Tel Aviv collide.