U.S. Senators reintroduce legislation to designate Houthis as terrorists (FTO)

As unrest continues in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden with Houthi rebels targeting shipping vessels and allegedly waging a proxy war with the U.S. and Israel on behalf of Iran, a group of U.S. Senators, reintroduced a bill designating the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO).

The FTO designation granted under the Trump administration was removed by the Biden administration in 2021.

“The Biden administration made a day one politically driven decision to dismantle terrorism sanctions against the Houthis and their leaders,” Cruz said. The administration “knew the decision was unjustified, lied about portions of it on camera to the American people, and deliberately limited access to the full announcement.”

The result “was an obvious and catastrophic mistake from the very beginning, and contributed to enabling the Houthis to relaunch their assault on civilians in Yemen, to launch missiles at Israel and our Gulf allies, and over the last year to consistently attack commercial ships and American servicemembers in the Red Sea,” Cruz said. By contrast, he says he believes President-elect Donald Trump “will reimpose those sanctions as part of restoring maximum pressure on the Iranian regime, and this bill ensures that the decision is backed and locked in by Congressional action.”

Joining Cruz as cosponsors are U.S. Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Bill Hagerty and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, John Barrasso of Wyoming, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Rick Scott of Florida.