If the Houthis threaten the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, we're fucked

https://time.com/article/2026/04/08/bab-el-mandeb-strait-iran-houthis-threat-trade-hormuz-war-ceasefire/

What to Know About the Bab El-Mandeb Strait as Iran Threatens to Restrict Other Key Trade Passage
by Tiago Ventura
Apr 9, 2026 7:24 AM CT

The Bab El-Mandeb, a waterway situated between Yemen and Djibouti and Eritrea in the Horn of Africa, has come under threat from Iranian officials.

Abed al-Thawr, a Yemeni military official, indicated in late March that the closure of the Bab El-Mandeb would be among the primary options that could be taken by the Houthis as a response to further escalation in the Iran war.

“We will use the trump card of closing the Bab al-Mandab Strait to American and Israeli ships and the naval and air blockade of Israel and America," he said, according to Iranian state media.

“The Bab el-Mandeb, just like Hormuz, is critical for the global economy,” Noam Raydan, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, tells TIME. “It is a chokepoint through which you have various ships, container ships, oil tankers or carriers that move between different regions or continents.”

Emily Holland, director of the Eurasia program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, who sat in the NATO shipping center as deputy political adviser for critical industry infrastructure during the Houthis’ campaign, described the impact of the group as “very disruptive.”

“It's not as if the Houthis were firing missiles and drones at every ship, it's more of a market signal that they can do it, and so then ships are reluctant to pass through the Strait because they cannot get insurance to do that,” she says.

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Trump: "The WHAT? Bab El-Mandeb? What the fuck is that? Ok, I will blockade that too!"