On Wednesday, President Donald Trump signed an order that will once again designate the Houthi militant group in Yemen as a terrorist organisation. This would occur nearly four years after the Biden administration had previously withdrawn the tag. 

Since then, the Iran-aligned Houthis have launched a protracted campaign of drone and missile assaults against cargo ships and other boats operating in the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea. The attacks followed the start of the war in Gaza and the Hamas attack on Israel. The attacks disrupted shipping and trade in the Middle East and persisted despite repeated strikes by the US and UK on Houthi targets. The Houthis have also carried out attacks on Israel. Last July, one of their drones struck a building in central Tel Aviv, killing one person and injuring several others.

“As a result of the Biden administration’s weak policy, the Houthis have fired at US Navy warships dozens of times, launched numerous attacks on civilian infrastructure in partner nations, and attacked commercial vessels,” the White House commented in a fact sheet on Wednesday evening. 

This week, the Houthis responded to the Israel-Hamas truce agreement by announcing that they would no longer strike US and UK boats in the Red Sea region. "The secretary of state is directed to recommend the re-designation of the Houthis within 30 days," according to Trump's executive order. Additionally, it demands that the US Agency for International Development and the State Department "end its relationship with entities that have made payments to the Houthis, or which have opposed international efforts to counter the Houthis" and investigate the activities of companies and contractors working in Yemen. 

The terrorist designation was first introduced at the end of Trump’s presidency. In 2021, President Joe Biden revoked it, citing concerns about famine in Yemen, a country caught in a civil war since 2014. The Houthis, a group from northern Yemen, rebelled against the United Nations-recognised government and took control of the capital, Sana’a. In response, a Saudi Arabia-led coalition stepped in to support the government.