Yemeni Houthis of Signalgate Fame Threatens Derailment of Trump’s Dreams of Victory

Sep 20, 2026 10:11 PM EDT, Sun

Signalgate was all about this militant group. Now they’re threatening to cost Trump the midterms.

_The Iranian-backed Houthi militants are once again threatening oil shipment routes through the Red Sea. What will President Donald Trump do this time?

By Felicia Schwartz

Sept. 18, 2026, 5:00 AM EDT

The U.S. decision to attack the Houthis last year unwittingly kicked off one of the most bruising political scandals of President Donald Trump’s second term: Signalgate.

Now the Iranian-backed Houthis are once again wreaking havoc on vital Red Sea transit routes, with Trump holding back and deciding not to widen the Iran campaign — for now.

American diplomats met with Houthi representatives at the U.S. Embassy in Oman over the weekend, a source briefed on the meeting said.

The goal was to cool down the conflict and ensure that ships can pass through the Red Sea, said the source, who was granted anonymity to describe sensitive discussions.

Both sides reaffirmed their commitment to a ceasefire set last year — in which the Houthis agreed not to hit U.S. targets and vice versa.

Much has changed since spring of last year, when the United States waged a seven-week, more than $1 billion military campaign to restore safe passage in the Red Sea — one top administration officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, discussed on the encrypted phone app Signal.

The chats were made public after then-U.S. national security adviser Mike Wartz mistakenly added a journalist, sparking months of chaos and staff shake-ups.

Trump, frustrated with the lack of progress at the time, halted the operation in May 2025 and reached a truce with the Houthis. The Houthis, an Iran-backed militant group in eastern Yemen, agreed not to attack U.S. vessels.

But now, the Houthi threat has morphed.

The group is seizing opportunity as the U.S.-Iran war grinds on and Tehran maintains control of the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia had rerouted much of its oil exports through the Red Sea to avoid that choke point, but the Houthis are now threatening its backup route, too, pushing up oil prices just as the U.S. midterm elections near.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman last week asked Trump to strike the Houthis after the group seized control of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, a key oil transit route on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula from the Strait of Hormuz that connects the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, according to a person familiar with the call who was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy. Trump declined the request, telling the crown prince that the U.S. wants Riyadh to take the lead in what the White House sees as a regional security challenge, the person said.

Asked about the call while in Ireland on Sept. 12, Trump said the crown prince is “a good friend of mine” and “everything’s going to work out fine and dandy.”

Despite Trump’s optimism, Americans have been increasingly critical of his handling of the war and the economy, with the Houthi escalation threatening to further spike high gas prices and pull the U.S. more deeply into the region, though Trump and his team are trying to avoid it.

The Houthis are now again attacking international shipping in the Red Sea — largely targeting ships exporting oil from Saudi Arabia — and have seized control of key ports in the Bab al-Mandab Strait.

The Yemen-based militant group has so far steered clear of American vessels, giving the U.S. cover not to attack Houthi targets for now.

The U.S. expects the Houthis to continue upholding the terms of last year’s ceasefire, a senior administration official said, adding that the group has communicated to the U.S. that “they don’t want to fight with us.”

Washington is “empowering our regional partners to take the lead in managing and resolving regional security challenges,” the official said.

Last year’s ceasefire with the Houthis “takes the U.S. out of the equation,” said David Schenker, who was the top Middle East official at the State Department during Trump’s first term.

“Trump doesn’t want to start another campaign, certainly not before the elections,” said Schenker, who is now a fellow at the Washington Institute. “We’re short of munitions and already stretched.”

That rationale is frustrating to Saudi Arabia and Washington’s other Middle East partners, who did not want Trump to launch a war with Tehran and now must face the security consequences as Trump struggles to find an offramp and diplomacy flounders, analysts said.

“The war with Iran really exposed the vulnerabilities of a lot of our partners in the Gulf,” Schenker said. “It raises all sorts of questions about what a U.S. security commitment to the Gulf looks like.”

Felicia Schwartz is a national security reporter for MS NOW.

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