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March 15, 2025

Earlier this afternoon, President Trump ordered large-scale military strikes against dozens of Houthi targets in Yemen. These strikes send a clear message to Iran and its terrorist proxies across the Middle East: attacking America and our interests will have devastating consequences.

  • Since October 7, 2023, the Houthis have engaged in over 350 incidents of maritime aggression. After months of assaults on U.S. ships, aircraft, drones, and allies, the Trump Administration is finally putting an end to impunity for their campaign of piracy and terror.
  • Despite warnings, the Houthis refused to stand down. In the last few weeks alone, they fired a surface-to-air missile at an American F-16 flying over the Red Sea and may have shot down a U.S. military MQ-9 Reaper drone.
  • President Trump knows that enough is enough and that the Houthis are murderous, evil terrorists. The Houthis’ slogan is ‘God is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse be upon the Jews, Victory to Islam.’
  • By his own admission, President Biden failed to deter Houthi terrorism in the Red Sea. That’s why they have attacked more than 100 merchant vessels and warships since October 7, 2023, using hundreds of missiles, drones and speedboats.
  • Because of this failure, it has been over a year since a U.S. flagged commercial ship safely sailed through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, or the Gulf of Aden. The most recent U.S. warship to go through the Red Sea was attacked by the Houthis over a dozen times.
  • The Biden Administration believed strength is provocative and weakness makes us safer. The Trump Administration knows that peace is achieved with strength–and that means decisive military action to deter terrorism.
  • The United States cannot allow terrorists to disrupt one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. Already, the Houthis have forced hundreds of ships to take a lengthy detour around South Africa, costing billions to the U.S. economy.
  • It also warns the Iranian regime that the Trump Administration is firmly prepared to take military action if necessary to deny them a nuclear weapon.

ULTRA Maximum Pressure is Already Weakening the Houthis and Iran 

  • At the start of 2021, President Trump left President Biden with a weakened Iran on the verge of collapse without the cash to support their terror proxies. Four years later, Biden handed Trump a regime flush with cash and Houthis armed with a modern arsenal. The Trump Administration is quickly undoing the damage caused by Biden’s weak policies.

  • In less than two months in office, the Trump Administration has already issued five rounds of sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran, sanctioning 94 individuals, oil tankers, and companies supporting the regime’s apparatus of terror across the world.

  • That’s more sanctions than President Biden imposed against Iran in his first 19 months of office combined. During those months of abject appeasement, the Biden Administration also lifted U.S. and U.N. sanctions on 44 of the regime’s financial backers and some of its most notorious terrorists and nuclear scientists.

  • Trump is taking the gloves off against the Houthis. On March 4, 2025, the Trump Administration re-sanctioned the Houthis as a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, reversing President Biden’s move to relieve financial and legal pressure on the Houthis.  

  • The very next day, the Treasury Department sanctioned seven senior Houthi leaders for smuggling Russian and Chinese weapons into Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen. It then cancelled a sanctions waiver for Iraq to purchase Iranian electricity – a waiver that had brought billions in revenue to the Iranian regime.

  • It is far harder to rebuild economic leverage than to give it away. But since President Trump’s return, his ULTRA Maximum Pressure campaign is already showing results.

    • Under President Biden, Iran enjoyed steady economic growth–including 5.0% growth in 2023 and 3.7% growth in 2024, according to IMF estimates–reversing their massive losses under Maximum Pressure. Iran’s foreign currency reserves rebounded from a low of $4 billion under Maximum Pressure to well over $30 billion under Maximum Appeasement.
    • The Iranian economy is already in disarray as it anticipates the impact of renewed sanctions. The rial has already plummeted in value 35% since President Trump was elected, and Iran’s parliament impeachedthe regime’s economic minister Abdolnasser Hemmati over rising inflation.
    • Iranian economists are warning that inflation in Iran will jump from around 33% currently to 40-50% this year thanks to ULTRA Maximum Pressure..

Build Back Better: Biden’s Appeasement Empowered Iran and the Houthis

  • Continued Houthi attacks are the consequence of the Obama-Biden strategy: coddle terrorists. During the early stages of the Yemen conflict in 2015, the Obama Administration pressured Riyadh and Abu Dhabi into taking a softer approach towards the Houthis–a shift that allowed the Houthis to regroup, rearm, and strengthen their capabilities. Then, the Biden Administration ended U.S. support for the Saudi-led military offensive in Yemen knowing full-well it was vital to contain the Houthis.
  • Secretary Blinken revoked the Foreign Terrorist Organization and Specially Designated Global Terrorist designations on the Houthis, claiming it would help fix the humanitarian crisis in Yemen. It didn’t. Then even as that crisis worsened, the Biden Administration re-listed the Houthis as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist–a tacit acknowledgement their decision was wrong from the start.
  • Biden’s weakness brought war and proved American inaction is provocative. For months, the Houthis attacked Western ships and sailors and the Biden White House refused to neutralize Houthi assets and protect American interests. Reactive half-measures convinced the Houthis that attacks on the United States would face few consequences. The Houthis repeatedly targeted our Navy warships, sank Western commercial vessels in the Red Sea, and even almost hit the U.S. consulate in Tel Aviv.  

President Trump Weakened the Houthis in His First Term

  • The Trump Administration called out Iran as the world’s leading state sponsor of terror - who spent hundreds of millions of dollars assisting the Houthis, including via the provision of UAVs, explosive boat technology, and missile support. The U.S. demanded that Tehran end its military support for the Houthi militia and work towards a peaceful political settlement in Yemen.
  • During its first term, the Trump Administration took historic action to starve Iran’s regime of money to fund terrorism. That included sanctions targeting over 1,500 individuals, companies, planes, and vessels linked to the Iranian regime for supporting terrorism, WMD proliferation, human rights abuses, and more.
  • Those sanctions were the toughest ever imposed on Iran, and the results were clear: more than two million barrels per day of Iranian crude were taken off the market, and nearly 30 countries–once regular customers of Iranian oil–zeroed out their imports.
  • Targeting Iran’s oil exports was critical because up to 40 percent of the regime’s revenue comes from the sale of oil. The government uses this revenue to support terrorist proxies and fuel its missile development.
  • As a result, Iran’s GDP shrunk by 5.5% in fiscal year 2018 and by 7.6% in fiscal year 2019 according to the IMF, with year-on-year inflation running as high as 63 percent for goods. Under increased pressure, Iran reduced its military budget by 10 percent from 2017 to 2018, and its 2019-2020 budget proposal called for a reduction of 28 percent in defense spending, including a 17 percent cut to the IRGC.
  • President Trump’s strong actions denied the regime direct access to around $70 billion in oil revenue. In December 2019, Iranian President Rouhani said that Iran had lost $200 billion because of U.S. sanctions.  That’s $200 billion less the regime has to spend on terror, missiles, and proxies like the Houthis.
  • The Trump Administration also took two of Iran’s most dangerous terrorists off the battlefield, killing Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. These actions demonstrated that we would not hesitate to take decisive action when faced with credible threats to American lives.
  • That same deterrence success was observed at sea. During the final two years of the Obama Administration, the U.S. Navy recorded 58 incidents of unsafe and unprofessional naval conduct by Iran, including the illegal detention of U.S. sailors. Under President Trump, Iran’s provocative maritime behavior declined sharply before rising again under the Biden Administration.
  • Under Maximum Pressure, U.S. officials also worked through the UN structure to apply additional pressure on the regime. On September 19, 2020, virtually all UN sanctions on Iran returned, including re-imposition of the UN arms embargo, through the U.S. snapback of Iran sanctions. Together, these measures put the Houthis on the ropes when President Trump left office.

Biden Enriched the Houthis’ Patrons with $100 Billion in Sanctions Relief

  • To court Supreme Leader Khamenei for nuclear talks, the Biden team looked the other way while Iran sold its terror oil and refused to enforce sanctions. Those sales funded terrorism used to kill Americans and for Houthi attacks in the Red Sea.
  • This cash infusion enabled Iran to fund and supply the Houthis with advanced weaponry, suicide drones and ballistic missiles. The only groups that Built Back Better in the Biden years were Iranian terror groups.
  • Biden dropped UN sanctions on Iran, allowing the regime to legally buy and sell tanks, planes, and submarines, and dangerous weapons across the globe. It also lifted 21 of Iran’s most notorious terrorists and nuclear scientists from the UN’s travel ban and asset freeze. There was no Iranian concession in return. 
  • Appeasement continued in March 2022, when the Biden Administration offered to lift terror sanctions on Iran’s Central Bank, its oil export industries, and senior terror leaders for Iran’s return to the JCPOA. 
  • President Biden even considered lifting the terrorist designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps–an extraordinary measure given that the IRGC had killed hundreds of Americans while the Quds Force supports terrorist proxies across the region. It took a Senate bipartisan supermajority–including the likes of Chuck Schumer–slamming the proposal to get the White House to back off the idea.
  • On September 11, 2023, Maximum Appeasement culminated in the Biden Administration’s ransom payments to Tehran, when the White House gifted the regime a massive $6 billion windfall to fund its terror proxies, nuclear proliferation, and Russia’s war machine.
  • Releasing frozen assets in exchange for the release of five Americans, President Biden’s team falsely assured the public that the funds would only be used for “humanitarian purposes.”  

October 7 Ushered in Further Houthi Attacks and Proved the Folly of Appeasement

  • On September 29, 2023, NSA Jake Sullivan boasted the Middle East “is quieter today than it has been in two decades.” Days later, the Middle East was more dangerous than at any point in half a century–since at least 1973. 
  • The Biden Administration’s stunning lack of foresight on the consequences of Maximum Appeasement was exposed on October 7 when Hamas terrorists, flushed with cash from Iran, brutally attacked Israel.
  • Joining in on the action, the Houthis blocked maritime transit in the Red Sea, demanding an end to Israel’s response in Gaza and attacking commercial vessels. Since October 7, the Houthis have launched over 670 projectiles against maritime targets.
  • Within a year, these attacks had cost the United States upwards of $1.16 billion to protect shipping lanes and defend U.S. forces. 
  • Maximum Appeasement was FAR more expensive than Maximum Deterrence. In less than a year since the October 7 attack, the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group and related assets had fired some 770 munitions, including 420 air-to-surface missiles, 60 air-to-air missiles, 135 Tomahawk land attack missiles, and 155 standard missiles.
  • Many of these U.S. missiles cost $2-4 million EACH—yet we were forced to use them to eliminate $2,000 Houthi drones. Why spend millions upon millions on warship deployments and missiles when we could have just deterred their attacks?
  • These costs don’t even account for the economic burden caused by Houthi attacks. With 15% of global shipping traveling through the Suez Canal and shipping prices rising from $2,500 to $6,500 per container, the U.S. suffered tens of billions of dollars of indirect costs. Houthi attacks caused as much as 25% of maritime commerce and trade in the region to divert elsewhere.
  • The Houthis recently acquired advanced hydrogen fuel cell systems from China to convert their suicide drones into long-range attack systems. Thanks to recent U.S. sanctions, we know they are buying weapons from Russia as well. In 2024, Biden’s Department of Defense even documented how the Houthis had massively increased their capabilities thanks to Iranian support.
  • Since October 7, Iran-linked actors have launched at least 204 attacks against U.S. personnel. Attacks against the U.S. by Iran-linked actors have skyrocketed since October 7, with a 630% total increase. The Biden Administration’s Maximum Appeasement strategy fueled a collapse of deterrence against Iran and its proxies, including the Houthis.