Trump Says US Is Stopping Yemen Bombings, After Killing Hundreds
In an abrupt announcement on Tuesday, President Donald Trump said that the U.S. is stopping its bombings in Yemen “effective immediately” after reaching an agreement with Houthi leaders on Monday night.
“We had some very good news last night,” Trump said, during a meeting with Canada’s prime minister. “The Houthis have announced that they are not — or, they’ve announced to us, at least, that they don’t want to fight anymore. They just don’t want to fight, and we will honor that.”
“They have capitulated, but more importantly, they — we will take their word. They say they will not be blowing up ships anymore, and that’s what — the purpose of what we were doing,” Trump went on.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed Trump’s sentiment.
“This was always a freedom of navigation issue,” Rubio said. “Besides, these are, you know, a band of individuals with advanced weaponry that were threatening global shipping and the job was to get that to stop.”
The Houthis have said that Trump’s announcement must be “evaluated on the ground.” Oman’s foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, said in a statement that Oman had helped to negotiate a “ceasefire agreement” between the U.S. and the Houthis.
“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,” Albusaidi said.
A Houthi official posted on social media after the announcement that the group’s stance is that the attacks on U.S. vessels are carried out in self-defense, and that if the U.S. “halts its attacks on us, we will halt our attacks on it.” Houthi leaders have long been clear that they are carrying out their campaign in the Red Sea in hopes of stopping Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Trump’s announcement comes after the U.S. has carried out strikes on over 1,000 targets in their war on the Houthis and Yemen. These strikes, carried out over the course of less than two months, have killed over 250 people, including children.
Researchers have recorded a huge spike in civilian casualties caused by the Trump administration’s strikes, with the Yemen Data Project able to confirm over 500 casualties, including 158 people killed and over 300 wounded.
Though Trump framed the Houthis’ stance as new, Drop Site reported in mid-April that the group held this stance, less than a month after the Trump administration’s strikes on Yemen began.
“We do not consider ourselves at war with the American people,” Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a Houthi spokesperson, told the outlet at the time. “If the U.S. stops targeting Yemen, we will cease our military operations against it.”
The administration had been saying for weeks that they would stop attacking Yemen and the Houthis if the attacks on U.S. ships ended. Despite that report, the U.S. has continued its fierce bombing campaign — and has pledged to do so in secret, refusing to disclose U.S. casualties or any other key details of the unauthorized war as a growing group of lawmakers and advocates have called for accountability for the civilian toll of U.S. attacks.
Trump said that there will be a “very very big announcement” regarding the Middle East this week, ahead of Trump’s visit to the region next week, in which he is expected to visit Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
The announcement came on the same day that Israel struck a port, cement factory and the main civilian airport in Yemen, “fully disabling” the airport, Israeli military authorities said. Houthi leaders have vowed to retaliate for the strikes, which came after Houthi militants hit an airport near Tel Aviv on Sunday, after Israel’s anti-missile systems failed.