Disengaging from the Middle East is no easy thing, as crises in the region continue to drag the US back in. Over the past few months, in particular, the Houthis’ attacks on vessels in the Red Sea have posed the greatest challenge.

Dr. Marta Furlan (South24)

With the 2024 US Presidential Election approaching, questions are growing in the Middle East over the new President’s approach to US policy in the Middle East.

Regardless of who wins in November, it seems fair to say that both Trump and Biden will both aspire to a quieter Middle East, while trying to invest the bare minimum of political capital to solve the conflicts and crises currently occurring in the region. For both leaders, in fact, the Middle East has long lost its priority importance (the kind of importance that it used to have when the US was dependent on the Middle East for oil), and the focus of attention has shifted towards the Indo-Pacific region. 

Nonetheless, disengaging from the Middle East is no easy thing, as crises in the region continue to drag the US back in. Over the past few months, in particular, the Hamas-Israel war, the security threat posed by Iran and its Axis of Resistance, and the Houthis’ attacks on vessels transiting through the Red Sea have posed the greatest challenge. In this latter regard, it is thus worth asking: How will the result of the US elections affect Yemen?

President Biden’s victory – scenario A

Two weeks after assuming the presidency in January 2021, Joe Biden took three key steps on Yemen. First, he removed the Houthis from the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) list that had previously been imposed by the Trump administration. Second, he appointed Tim Lenderking as Special Envoy to Yemen. Third, he announced that Washington would stop supporting Saudi offensive operations in Yemen, and declared that the war in Yemen had to end. 

At the end of Biden’s first term, however, the scenario in Yemen could not be further away from peace. While the Houthis and the Saudis have engaged over the past two years in some unprecedented talks, these are yet to turn into anything concrete. Moreover, the talks never involved the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) in South Yemen, suggesting that a country-wide peace is not in sight – at best, a Houthi-Saudi deal of some sort that will allow Riyadh to close its tragic Yemeni adventure. 

Related: The Motives and Background behind the postponement of the Muscat Negotiations 

To complicate matters further, in October the Hamas-Israel war broke out. Since then, the Houthis have been asserting themselves on the regional scene as one of the most influential actors. First, the group launched a series of missiles and drone attacks against Israel. Following those attacks, whose value was mostly symbolic, the Houthis resorted to attacking ships transiting through the Red Sea.

Related: The Expansion of the Israeli-Lebanese War and its Regional Ramifications 

While the Biden administration wanted to avoid being sucked into a new Middle East conflict, the situation in the Red Sea rapidly reached a point where action was inevitable. The credibility of the US in the region was being questioned and there was an imperative to re-establish some form of deterrence.

In response to the security threat posed by the Houthis, on January 12, the United States and Britain launched their first military strikes in Yemen against Houthi targets – the first in a long, ongoing series of military strikes on places such as Sanaa, Hodeidah, and Hajjah. On January 17, the Biden administration added the Houthis to the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) organization, a category that denies the Houthis access to the US financial system but is less consequential than the FTO categorization. 

While a detailed discussions of these moves and their implications lie beyond the scope of this article, it is worth making two points. 

First, the US-UK strikes on Houthi targets are not as effective as some American and British officials may have hoped. The Houthis seem to be navigating the current situation with ease, using it as an opportunity to capitalize on the anti-foreign intervention sentiments that prevail in Yemen and recruit new sympathizers, supporters, and fighters. Moreover, most of the Houthi military arsenal is in tunnels, caves, and new underground facilities. Second, the SDGT designation seems of little relevance when imposed on a group that does not have any foreign financial assets. 

Should Biden be re-elected President of the US for a second consecutive term, it seems realistic not to expect a major change in his administration’s approach to Yemen, which will probably continue to look for a balance between avoiding an escalation of military confrontation in the region, maintain the US as much as possible out of direct engagement in any battlefield, and re-assert a certain deterrence vis-à-vis the Houthis through targeted airstrikes.

Former President Trump’s victory – scenario B

The Trump administration was characterized by a tough stance towards the Houthis.

In 2019, President Trump vetoed a bipartisan resolution that would have forced an end to American military involvement in Saudi Arabia’s civil war in Yemen, despite Trump’s own preference for a US withdrawal from foreign conflicts. The measure was a rebuke of his support for Saudi Arabia and his de-facto ruler, Muhammad bin Salman.

In his veto message, Trump said he agreed with Congress that “great nations do not fight endless wars”. Yemen, however, was different in his eyes. The United States provides logistical support to the Saudi-led coalition against the Houthi rebels and Saudi Arabia remains a staunch ally of the United States against Iran: “We cannot end the conflict in Yemen through political documents,” President Trump said. “Peace in Yemen requires a negotiated settlement.”

In early 2020, President Trump also halted some $70 million of aid for healthcare programs in Yemen, despite calls from NGOs and humanitarian groups, as well as members of Congress, to delay the decision in face of the Covid-19 pandemic. Apparently, the decision was aimed at pressuring the Houthis to cease their restrictions on international humanitarian aid. US officials also told that the decision to cut off aid was meant to place pressure on the Houthi rebels by indicating to the world, and to the Yemenis living under their control, that the group alone is responsible for their suffering.

Finally, and as remembered above, in January 2021 President Trump designated the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO), prompting uproar that the resulting sanctions would worsen Yemen’s dire humanitarian situation. Back then, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo observed: “If Ansar Allah [the Houthis] did not behave like a terrorist organization, we would not designate it as an FTO.”

In the past few months, following the Biden’s administration decision to launch military strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen, former President Trump condemned the move, accusing his opponent of dragging the US in another Middle East war: “So, let me get this straight. We’re dropping bombs all over the Middle East, AGAIN (where I defeated ISIS!) […]”

Should Trump be re-elected President of the US for a second non-consecutive term, it seems realistic to expect a return to his past approach, whereby investment of US military capabilities through airstrikes may be brought to a halt (especially in light of their lack of any significant impact), while aggressive measures towards the Houthis would be strengthened. Like in the past, these may include a re-designation of the Houthis as FTO and a cut of aid for humanitarian operations in Yemen. Unfortunately, should this be the case, the consequences will be far more catastrophic for the people of Yemen than for the Houthis, as the former will see their access to international aid (on which more than half are dependent) obstructed.