Trump Admin Opens Talks With Houthis as Yemen War Escalates
Left 50%
Center 0%
Right 50%
1 left · 0 center · 1 right
What happened
Houthi forces seized effective control of Yemen's Red Sea coastline, including the port of Mocha and Perim Island in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, in a rapid advance that forced more than 100,000 people to flee. Fighting had resumed after Saudi Arabia bombed Sana'a airport following a July flight from Iran to Houthi-controlled Sana'a, the first in over a decade, after Riyadh had earlier withdrawn from a war it led against the Houthis and the United Arab Emirates had pulled out its troops around the turn of the year. Vice President JD Vance said the United States had held direct talks with the Houthis; Reuters, citing five sources, reported that U.S. officials met Houthi representatives including sanctioned senior official Mohammad Abdulsalam at the U.S. Embassy in Muscat over a weekend, facilitated by Oman, while the State Department said it had no comment on that specific reported meeting. The Houthis, designated a foreign terrorist organization by the Trump administration in March 2025, told American officials they had no intention of attacking U.S. vessels, remained committed to a May 2025 ceasefire reached after roughly two months of U.S. strikes over Red Sea shipping attacks, and pledged not to attack Israeli or other commercial vessels except Saudi ships, according to Reuters. President Donald Trump said the Houthis had asked the United States to stay out of the fighting with Saudi-backed forces; Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sought U.S. military assistance as the advance accelerated, and Washington said it did not intend to enter the fighting directly, against the backdrop of an ongoing U.S. conflict with Iran.
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Omitted — what each side leaves out
Unpacked
Washington opened direct talks with the Houthis while still listing them as a foreign terrorist organization, yet left-leaning coverage never reports the meeting. The State Department would not confirm the session. Left-leaning coverage instead describes a Houthi surge along the Red Sea coast, Saudi isolation after Trump rebuffed help, and a plea for a political process inside Yemen. Right-leaning coverage in the Daily Caller makes those undisclosed Muscat talks the entire story, including Houthi pledges to spare American and Israeli ships.
Left-leaning coverage says the Houthis "are not mere proxies for Tehran." Right-leaning coverage calls them "firm Iranian proxies."
What did U.S. diplomats offer the Houthis in Muscat, if anything, in exchange for those pledges to spare American and Israeli ships?
Bottom line
A Guardian reader never hears that JD Vance confirmed direct U.S. talks with the Houthis, only that Trump rebuffed Saudi requests for help.
The receipts — 5 facts one side's coverage lacks
- U.S. officials held undisclosed talks with Houthi representatives at the U.S. Embassy in Muscat
- More than 100,000 people have been forced to flee
- The Trump administration designated Ansar Allah as a foreign terrorist organization in March 2025
- Senior Houthi official Mohammad Abdulsalam, who is under U.S. sanctions, attended the talks
- Half the population of Yemen depend on humanitarian aid
The Left View
The Guardian frames the advance as a shock that has turned "another vital Middle East artery" into a battlefield, arguing that Houthi control of the Bab el-Mandeb — "the other major regional energy chokepoint after the Hormuz strait" — threatens a halt to shipping that "could be much more protracted" than slower, costlier alternatives. It casts Saudi Arabia as having "recklessly spearheaded" a war it later left "at astounding cost to its own coffers and Yemeni civilians," then as having given the Houthis "the opportunity to escalate while blaming Riyadh" by bombing Sana'a airport. The editorial says the Houthis "are not mere proxies for Tehran, but their interests are increasingly aligned, thanks to Donald Trump's unlawful war on Iran," notes that Trump "has rebuffed requests for help," and describes the forces opposed to the Houthis as "more fractured than ever," citing the UAE withdrawal. It argues that "Yemen's recent history amply demonstrates the futility of seeking a military solution," that Riyadh now faces talks with an "emboldened enemy" making "increasingly maximalist demands" or a return to full-scale war "with little support this time," and that outsiders should promote a political process inside Yemen, stress protection of civilians, and treat "a resolution to the Iran war" as the priority "without which danger in the region, and broader instability, will only grow."
The Right View
The Daily Caller presents the Muscat contacts as quiet direct diplomacy with a group that remains a listed foreign terrorist organization, stressing that Washington is talking even as the March 2025 designation stands. It quotes Jacob Olidort of the America First Policy Institute saying the timing speaks to "the Iranian regime's calculus and the successes of the U.S. efforts to eliminate threats," and that Tehran sees the Houthis as "a lower-risk option to escalate attacks against U.S. personnel and partners." Alex Welz of the Heritage Foundation said the Houthis "likely seek to extract some semblance of international legitimacy" by claiming they can "responsibly guard the Bab-el-Mandeb," but "remain a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, firm Iranian proxies, and sworn enemies of the West, so their commitments should be taken lightly." Will Todman of CSIS described the talks as an effort "to deescalate and prevent the outbreak of a new major front in the conflict with Iran," with the Houthis trying to show "specific and narrow goals" — ending Saudi intervention rather than squeezing the global economy — and to deter Trump from joining Saudi operations. Steve Hanke called past U.S. backing of Saudi Arabia's war "a clear-cut disaster" and said the administration is "trying to cut its losses and disengage." The State Department, declining to confirm the specific meeting, said it remains focused on "shared counterterrorism goals," that "commitment to Israel is ironclad," and that core interests include "freedom of navigation in the Red Sea" and "preventing the export of terrorism."
Our Take (balanced)
The left's strongest argument is that force will not reverse the advance and that the fighting is bound up with a wider Iran war that has aligned Houthi and Iranian interests, pointing to Saudi Arabia's earlier costly intervention, the opening created by the Sana'a airport strike, a fractured anti-Houthi camp after the UAE pullout, and Washington's refusal of Riyadh's request for help. The right's strongest argument is that limited talks are a way to keep the Red Sea from becoming another full war front and to test the Houthis' reported promise to spare U.S., Israeli, and non-Saudi shipping, with Todman citing de-escalation and narrow Houthi aims and Hanke citing the failure of prior U.S.-backed Saudi warfare, while Welz's caution that the group's pledges "should be taken lightly" is offered as the accompanying caveat, not a reason to refuse contact. The central unresolved tension is whether those contacts are a decoupling of Yemen from the Iran confrontation that protects navigation without undoing the terrorist designation, or a de facto elevation of an Iranian-backed, U.S.-listed organization as it consolidates a global energy chokepoint.
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