By Chris Menahan – Information Liberation
The Houthis declared victory on Tuesday after President Trump announced the US would stop bombing Yemen as part of a deal between the US and Yemen which reportedly does not include any provisions for Israel’s security.
As the entire point of the US bombing campaign was to secure Israel’s safety, this amounts to a total capitulation and an acknowledgement that the Trump administration’s ramped up bombing campaign accomplished nothing.
The Houthis original offer to the US last month was that they would not target US ships in exchange for the US ending their bombing campaign but would still continue to target Israel/Israeli ships to demand an end to the genocide in Gaza — and that appears to be the deal the US has now accepted.
President Donald Trump made a surprise announcement on Tuesday that the United States would stop bombing the Houthis in Yemen, insisting that the rebel group had agreed to stop attacking U.S. ships in the Red Sea.
“They’ve announced to us at least that they don’t want to fight anymore,” Trump said during an White House photo-op with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. “They just don’t want to fight, and we will honor that.”
“And, they have capitulated,” he added. “But more importantly, they — we will take their word. They say they will not be blowing up ships anymore.”
The move caps off weeks of costly attacks and threats delivered by the Trump administration, which led to a major shakeup of the president’s national security team.
A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of Oman confirmed the announcement in an X post on Tuesday.
“Following recent discussions and contacts conducted by the Sultanate of Oman with the United States and the relevant authorities in Sana’a, in the Republic of Yemen, with the aim of de-escalation, efforts have resulted in a ceasefire agreement between the two sides,” the Foreign Ministry of Oman said in the statement.
“In the future, neither side will target the other, including American vessels, in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait, ensuring freedom of navigation and the smooth flow of international commercial shipping,” it added.
However, Mohammed Ali al Houthi, a member of the Houthi Supreme Political Council, said the Houthis are not immediately agreeing to the U.S.-proposed ceasefire.
The Houthis will “evaluate” the U.S. ceasefire proposal “on the ground first,” he posted on X Tuesday afternoon.
When asked by ABC News for more details on the announcement, U.S. Central Command deferred to the White House.
During another event at the Oval Office later Tuesday, Trump claimed that he informed the military to stop its attacks “a little while ago.”
Trump was pressed by reporters for more details about how the deal with the Houthis came together, but he quickly said the announcement isn’t a deal.
“They’ve said, ‘Please don’t bomb us anymore, and we’re not going to attack your ships,'” he said.
When asked who told the U.S. that the Houthi attacks on U.S. ships would stop, Trump demurred, saying it “doesn’t matter” and then adding that it was from a “very, very good source.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President J.D. Vance laughed and said they agreed with him.
“They don’t want to be bombed anymore,” Trump repeated.
Rubio added that “this was always a freedom of navigation mission.”
“These guys, these are, you know, a band of individuals with advanced weaponry that were threatening global shipping,” he said. “And the job was to get that to stop.”
Senior Houthi official Mohammed al-Bukhaiti said last month, “If the U.S. stops targeting Yemen, we will cease our military operations against it. We do not consider ourselves at war with the American people.”
They said they’d stop attacking Israel as soon as the genocide ended and did stop their attacks when a ceasefire was agreed upon earlier this year. They only resumed them after Israel broke the ceasefire and sabotaged the peace deal they had agreed upon.
“The deal, which the president described as a handshake agreement rather than a formal treaty, did not include a guarantee that the Houthis would stop striking Israel, despite the group having claimed responsibility for airstrikes on Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv days last weekend,” Jewish Insider lamented. “The group instead said on Tuesday that, while it may stop attacking U.S. ships, it will ‘definitely continue our operations in support to Gaza.'”
“Israeli officials were reportedly not informed that the U.S. was in talks with the Houthis or about the deal before Trump announced it,” JI noted.
“The Houthis themselves stopped short of declaring a full cease-fire, saying that they would continue to fight Israel,” the New York Times reported on Tuesday. “And Houthi officials and supporters swiftly portrayed the deal as a major victory for the militia and a failure for Mr. Trump, spreading a social media hashtag that read ‘Yemen defeats America.'”
Trump’s apparent decision to end the war also comes as reports were released that a second $60 million F/A-18E Super Hornet fighter jet assigned to the USS Harry S. Truman was “lost” in the Red Sea.
I said on April 9 after Trump caved on his “retaliatory tariffs” that “if Trump handles war with Iran like he’s handled tariffs, he will start the war and then surrender and claim victory once he realizes he doesn’t actually ‘have the cards.'”
Trump has followed that exact pattern now both with his trade war and his war with the Houthis.
While Trump could have saved many civilian lives and much US treasure by not launching this stupid war to begin with, I applaud him for cutting his losses and electing not to tie America down in another endless war for Israel.