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In 2021, it was a stuck ship that caused massive disruption to global trade. The Ever Given, a 1,300-foot cargo ship, had gotten stuck in Egypt’s Suez Canal, blocking an estimated $10 billion of cargo every day. Amid a global pandemic already causing huge trade disruption, deliveries of just about everything were delayed and there were major worries that it could lead to a painful surge in prices for consumers.
Almost three years later, there’s another crisis hitting shipping not so far from where the Ever Given got stuck. On Monday, oil giant BP announced it had paused all shipments through the Red Sea after attacks by the Houthi militant group targeting vessels along the route, which leads to and from the Suez Canal.
While it has not yet done so, the disruption being caused by the Houthi attacks has the worrying potential to cause the type of damage that the Suez Canal blockage threatened. In an editorial published Sunday, the Wall Street Journal suggested it was worse, calling it “the most significant threat to global shipping in decades.”
Roughly 10 percent of all oil traded at sea goes through the Red Sea, but shipping firms have begun to move to avoid the route due to the Houthi attacks, instead taking a far longer and costlier journey around Africa. Oil prices rose after BP, the first major oil firm to pause shipping through the Red Sea, announced on Monday its plans to avoid the area. Most of the attacks have taken place in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a slim waterway near the area controlled by the Iran-linked militant group in Yemen.
In 2021, the Ever Given was freed after a week and the impact on consumers was ultimately minor. This time, however, trade is being disrupted not by an accident or error, but by the deliberate actions of an armed group. The result could be a protracted impact on trade or worse.
Houthi attacks in the Red Sea
from Nov. 19 to Dec. 15
Source: U.S. Department of Defense
Houthi attacks in the Red Sea from Nov. 19 to Dec. 15
Source: U.S. Department of Defense
The Houthis began their attacks in the Red Sea after Israel began to bombard Gaza in response to the massive Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7. that killed 1,200. The attacks targeted ships that were linked to Israel, the Houthis claimed, with spokesman Gen. Yahya Saree writing on social media that ships carrying Israeli flags or operated or owned by Israeli companies would be targeted.
In practice, it has appeared far more haphazard. As Houthis fired missiles and drones at ships transiting the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, many had no apparent Israeli connection. On Nov. 20, the Houthis hijacked a Bahamas-flagged Galaxy Leader and took its 25 crew members hostage. Though the ship was affiliated with an Israeli billionaire, no Israeli citizens were on board.
BP suspends Red Sea shipping amid attacks by Yemen’s Houthi militants
In statements, the Houthis have said that their attacks are motivated by anger at the “genocidal war” being perpetrated by Israeli forces in Gaza. It’s an unusual international intervention for a group long focused on Yemen and its immediate neighbors. Unlike Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis are not made up of Palestinians, and they do not share a border with Israel like Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
But the Houthis, who seized control of Yemen’s capital in 2014 and sparked a long and bloody civil war, have received military aid from Iran, the most powerful regional rival for Israel. In 2017, Reuters interviewed an unnamed Iranian official who said that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was working out ways to “empower” the Houthis against their Saudi-backed rivals in Yemen.
While the Houthis have largely been focused on national issues, their rhetoric has long singled out Israel as a nation and Jews as a people as figures of hate. Their slogan, adapted from the revolutionary Iranian phrase, emphasizes both: “God is the greatest; Death to America; Death to Israel; Curse the Jews; Victory to Islam.”
The increasing number of attacks by the Houthis has left global powers scrambling. U.S. and British warships sent to the region to protect commercial ships have already shot down Houthi drones, but Washington is pushing allies to do more.
In a Monday statement, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced the formation of a multinational initiative to “jointly address security challenges in the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden,” dubbing it “an international challenge that demands collective action.” The initiative, titled Operation Prosperity Guardian, will initially include Bahrain, Britain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles and Spain.
The situation is made more uncertain by several factors. Since Oct. 7, the Biden administration has been worried about the conflict in Gaza turning into a broader regional conflict. Opening up a front in the Red Sea could be a step toward that.
Most worrying, however, is the uncertainty about what is motivating the Houthis. The group is considered among the most technically able of the foreign militias backed by Iran, with longer-range missiles that appear to be able to target Israel. Yet despite their reliance on Tehran for technology, analysts believe they act with a large degree of independence. Notably, Houthis are minority Zaydi Shiites, marking them as religiously distinct from the mainstream Shiites who make up the majority of people in Iran and Iraq.
The Houthis have concurrently suggested they may be willing to negotiate, with the group telling Reuters on Saturday that it was involved in Oman-mediated talks. The civil war in Yemen has been kept quiet as back-channel talks continue, even though U.N.-brokered cease-fires have expired. For this reason, Saudi Arabia has been hesitant to push it too hard. But the United Arab Emirates, the backer of another party in Yemen, wants a more forceful approach, Bloomberg reported this week, complicating efforts to isolate the Houthis.
Despite their rural origins in Yemen’s northern mountains, the Houthis have shown a surprisingly global understanding of how to attack global trade, hitting at Saudi Arabian oil facilities long before their current moves to disrupt shipping. The Houthis may believe that by attacking global trade in support of Gaza, they can further domestic aims and bring attention to their position in Yemen’s long-overlooked civil war.
But it’s a gamble. With an election coming up in the United States and bloody wars in the Middle East and Europe, threatening further global economic disruption is a very dangerous game. And it will take more than moving one ship to get trade back on track.