Iran has asked Yemen’s Houthi movement to stand ready to close the Red Sea oil route if the United States strikes Iranian power infrastructure, raising concerns over further disruption to global energy supplies. Three sources told Reuters on Thursday that the request had been discussed within Iran’s leadership and conveyed to the Houthis — an instruction that, if acted upon, would simultaneously close or severely disrupt both of the Middle East’s principal oil export routes for the first time in the modern history of global energy markets.
What Reuters Confirmed
Iran has asked its Houthi allies in Yemen to stand ready to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the gateway to the Red Sea, if the United States follows through on President Donald Trump’s threat to attack Iranian power plants and bridges, three sources told Reuters.
A source close to the Houthis added that the Iran-backed group has placed drones and missiles in position to attack vessels in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, the chokepoint at the southern end of the Red Sea.
The final decision on whether to take action against shipping in the strait will be taken by representatives of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps based in Yemen. The IRGC has representatives already in Yemen — an operational command structure that means the decision to close the Bab el-Mandeb does not require a directive from Tehran but merely an order from IRGC commanders on the ground.
What the Bab el-Mandeb Is and Why It Matters
The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is a 29-kilometre-wide passage between Yemen and Djibouti that connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. It is the southern gateway to the Suez Canal route — the passage through which European buyers receive Gulf oil and through which Asian manufacturers ship goods to European markets.
Roughly 7% of global oil output transited Bab el-Mandeb in June, according to Kpler, a maritime trade analytics firm. That figure — already below the pre-Houthi-campaign baseline, which was closer to 12% — reflects the partial diversion of shipping away from the Red Sea that began with the Houthi maritime campaign of 2023-2025. But the crucial additional context is what has happened since the Hormuz closure.
Saudi Arabia has been rerouting its oil exports from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea via its east-west cross-country pipeline, with shipments departing from Yanbu Port. This pipeline — which connects Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province oil fields directly to the Red Sea, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz — has been Saudi Arabia’s primary mechanism for continuing to export oil since the Hormuz blockade effectively closed that route. That workaround would itself be exposed if the Houthis moved against Red Sea shipping.
In other words: the Gulf states have spent five months routing their oil exports through the Red Sea precisely because Hormuz is blocked. A Houthi closure of the Bab el-Mandeb — the Red Sea’s exit — would eliminate that alternative, leaving Gulf oil with no viable seaborne export route.
The Trigger — Trump’s Infrastructure Threats
Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya emergency command responded to Trump’s threats, saying: “We will not allow America, a foreign power from outside our region, to interfere in the Strait of Hormuz. If his latest threats, including attacks on Iranian infrastructure, are carried out, all infrastructure in the region will be destroyed by powerful strikes from Iranian forces.”
The specific trigger for Iran’s Houthi instruction is Trump’s repeated threats to bomb Iranian power plants and bridges. Trump made those threats in a July 14 interview and has reiterated them since. Iran has told the Houthis in Yemen to prepare to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait if the United States carries out President Donald Trump’s threat to bomb Iranian power plants and bridges, Reuters reported.
The logic of Iran’s escalatory posture is consistent: every time the US threatens Iranian civilian infrastructure — power plants, bridges, water — Iran responds by threatening a corresponding disruption to global energy flows. Having already effectively closed Hormuz, Iran is now weaponising its relationship with the Houthis to extend that energy leverage to the Red Sea.
The Strategic Calculation — Threat Versus Action
Some analysts argue that simply keeping the option credible gives Tehran leverage over Washington without requiring an actual attack. This observation captures the most sophisticated reading of Iran’s Houthi strategy: the threat itself changes US decision-making, potentially deterring strikes on Iranian power infrastructure even if the Houthis never actually fire a missile.
For Trump, the threat creates a specific dilemma. Striking Iranian power plants and bridges — which he has threatened multiple times — would likely trigger the Houthi maritime campaign. That campaign would simultaneously disrupt both Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb, closing both of the Middle East’s oil export corridors. The energy market consequences — Brent crude approaching $150 or above — would be felt immediately and severely by every American consumer who buys petrol, pays an electricity bill or purchases goods that were transported. The political cost of that outcome would be significant, regardless of the military rationale for the strikes.
What the Houthis Have Already Done
The Houthis have form. Their maritime campaign against commercial shipping in the Red Sea, launched in October 2023 in support of Gaza and sustained through 2024 and into 2025, produced one of the most significant disruptions to global maritime trade in the modern era — redirecting hundreds of ships around the Cape of Good Hope, adding weeks to transit times and billions to shipping costs.
The Houthis refrained from attacking commercial shipping earlier in the US-Israeli conflict with Iran. The Red Sea has become a critical alternative route for Persian Gulf states’ energy exports following the Iranian closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Their restraint during the first 141 days of the conflict was itself a strategic choice — maintaining the Red Sea as a functioning alternative to Hormuz limited the global energy damage and made a broader economic collapse less likely. The instruction now being given to prepare to close the Bab el-Mandeb represents a deliberate reversal of that restraint.
What Happens to Oil Prices If the Strait Closes
Market analysts have not yet published formal scenarios for simultaneous Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb closure, because the scenario has not previously been considered seriously plausible. If both chokepoints were simultaneously closed or disrupted to below 20% of normal capacity, the only functioning export routes for Middle Eastern oil would be overland pipelines — which collectively can handle approximately 5 million barrels per day, compared to the 30+ million barrels per day that normally flows through the two straits combined. The gap — more than 25 million barrels per day — has no alternative supply. Brent crude prices under that scenario would enter genuinely uncharted territory.
The Maersk shipping company, which had only on July 9 said that ships on its Middle East to US East Coast service would resume transiting through the Red Sea rather than routing around the Cape of Good Hope, will now be watching the Houthi positioning closely. A single Houthi attack on a major vessel in the Bab el-Mandeb would immediately reverse that decision and send shipping costs back to their 2024 crisis-era peaks.
