US Hoping to Keep Shipping Stable as It Looks to Deter Houthis, Official Says

The U.S. Navy is trying to help commercial cargo ships maintain the alternative trade routes companies have found as the U.S. works to end Houthi attacks on ships transiting the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, Vice Admiral George Wikoff said. And although the U.S. has used sanctions to target several Iran-backed networks helping to supply the Houthis, he said the U.S.-designated terror group is increasingly diversifying its suppliers and is becoming a legitimate technology exporter.

Wikoff said it’s a “fair question” to ask whether the U.S. is doing enough to “deter” Houthi attacks on cargo ships. The military is more focused on preserving existing trade routes to prevent even more disruptions to international trade, especially for shipments traveling between Asia and the Middle East to the U.S. East Coast and Europe, said Wikoff, speaking during an event this week hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“Every day we try to figure out where we are on the meter with regard to stability in the region,” Wikoff said. The U.S. has “certainly degraded their capability. There's no doubt about that.”

But “have we stopped them?” he said. “No.”

Wikoff noted that the shipping industry faced challenges rerouting trading lanes late last year after the Houthis began attacking commercial ships. But since February, as ocean liners began avoiding the Red Sea and instead started to transit around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, shipping has stabilized.

“What we've seen since the beginning of February is really a stabilization. And it's an unacceptable stabilization, don't get me wrong. It's not an acceptable solution. But we have seen some degree of stabilization,” he said. The plan is to “try to preserve maybe where we are right now to allow other levers of government, other levers of the international community, to pressurize the Houthis to stop what they're doing.”

Wikoff said the Navy last year had tracked about 2,000 ships per month transiting the Bab al-Mandab Strait -- the strait between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula and Djibouti and Eritrea in the Horn of Africa. That number is now about 1,000 ships per month, he said.

That drop in ships has “really reflected the maritime industry's ability to recalibrate and reinitiate their routes,” Wikoff said.

It also has led to higher rates for shippers. The Federal Maritime Commission in recent months has granted ocean carriers special permission to immediately hike rates on containers that are being rerouted around the southern cape of Africa, leading to added challenges and costs for the shipping industry (see 2401050066).

“Our mission remains to disrupt their ability and try to preserve some semblance of maritime order while we give an opportunity for policy to be developed against the Houthis,” Wikoff said.

He also said the U.S. is closely tracking “all supply coming in to the Houthis,” including from Iran. The Treasury Department has issued several rounds of sanctions against Iranian-linked people, entities and vessels helping to move weapons for the Houthis or for shipping commodities to fund the group (see 2406170026, 2403260016 and 2403060017). But Wikoff also said he doesn’t believe that support is “necessarily limited to” Iran.

“The Iranians certainly back the Houthis, but the Houthis are diversifying,” he said, although he didn’t name other suppliers. The U.S. also has sanctioned people and companies in China for procuring weapons for the Houthis (see 2407310008).

Compared with 10 years ago, the Houthis “have developed far beyond that, far beyond the ways that we used to look at Houthis being supplied.” He added that “there's discussion that they could be becoming exporters of technology, and they are continuing to develop their capability.”

The Navy is still trying to “deny” Iranian suppliers from sending cargo to help the Houthis, he said, but “we do believe that the overall supply of the Houthis is far more complex.”