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houthis
Gas Prices in US Already Up 35% as Iranians Threaten to Close Another Strait Over Trump War
Rep. Don Beyer blamed the surge in gas prices on President Donald Trump's decision to wage "an illegal war against Iran with no plan or strategy."
Apr 06, 2026
As President Donald Trump continues threatening to commit war crimes in Iran by bombing power plants, Iran is signaling that it could put a further squeeze on global oil prices by shutting down yet another strait used for transporting petroleum outside the Middle East.
Ali Akbar Velayati, a former Iranian foreign minister and a top adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, threatened in a Sunday social media post to close down the Strait of Bab al-Mandeb, a waterway adjacent to the coast of Yemen that is under control of Iran-backed Houthi militants.
“If the White House dares to repeat its foolish mistakes," Velayati cautioned, "it will soon realize that the flow of global energy and trade can be disrupted with a single move."
As Al Jazeera noted in a Monday report, the Houthis already shut down the strait during Israel's war on Gaza, and doing so again at the same time Iran has shut down the Strait of Hormuz could send global energy prices to unprecedented highs.
"The strait is a vital route through which Saudi Arabia sends its oil to Asia," Al Jazeera reported. "If Bab al-Mandeb and the Strait of Hormuz were both shut, that would block 25%... of the world’s oil and gas supply."
Oil prices have shot up since Trump launched his illegal war with Iran more than a month ago, and on Monday the price of Brent crude oil futures was trading at $110 per barrel, while the average price for gas in the US rose to $4.12 per gallon, according to data from AAA.
Democratic members of the US Congress Joint Economic Committee (JEC) last week released a study estimating that, thanks to Trump's war, Americans are paying 35% more to fill up their cars than they were paying a month earlier.
Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), a member of the JEC, pointed to the report in a Monday social media post and said Americans were getting hit with major price shocks because "President Trump decided to wage an illegal war against Iran with no plan or strategy."
Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Ranking Member of the JEC, told WMUR that Trump's Iran war took an already bad situation for American families and made it worse.
"Families are already being pushed to the brink," Hassan said. "That was true before the war started, by the cost of everything from groceries to rent to healthcare insurance premiums and prescriptions and even more. But now they're being forced to pay more at the pump."
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'This Crisis is Expanding': Trump's Iran War Escalates as Houthis Launch Missile at Israel
"You thought it was bad when Iran throttled the Strait of Hormuz?... The Houthis have already proven they can keep the Red Sea closed despite a year of US Navy skirmishing," said one journalist.
Mar 28, 2026
The Houthis on Saturday took credit for launching a ballistic missile at Israel, opening a new front in the war US President Donald Trump illegally started with Iran nearly one month ago.
As reported by Axios, the attack by the Houthis signals that the Yemen-based militia is joining the conflict to aide Iran, which has been under aerial assault from the US and Israel for the past four weeks.
Although the Houthi missile was intercepted by Israeli defenses, it is likely just the opening salvo in an expanding conflict throughout the Middle East.
Axios noted that while the Houthis entered the war by launching an attack on Israel, they could inflict the most damage on the US and its allies in the region by shutting down the strait of Bab al-Mandeb in the Red Sea.
"Doing that," Axios explained, "would dramatically increase the global economic crisis that has been created due to the war with Iran" and its closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which has sent global energy prices skyrocketing.
Sky News international correspondent John Sparks reported on Saturday that the Houthis' entrance into the war shows that "this crisis is expanding, it is escalating."
'This crisis is expanding and escalating.'
Houthi rebels in Yemen have confirmed they launched a missile at Israel, marking the Iran-backed group's first involvement in the war.
@sparkomat reports live from Jerusalem
https://t.co/Leuc4SnGfG
📺 Sky 501 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/TmlyFHkCZN
— Sky News (@SkyNews) March 28, 2026
Sparks argued that the Houthis' decision to fire a missile at Israel signals that "the geographical spread of this conflict is expanding," adding that "the Houthis have shown the ability to attack shipping in the Red Sea and the waters around the Arabian Peninsula."
Sparks said that even though Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio "have been projecting confidence" about having the war under control, "it's not playing out that way... on the ground."
Danny Citrinowicz, senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, argued that the Houthis' main value to Iran isn't launching strikes on Israel, but their ability to increase economic pressure on the US.
Citrinowicz also outlined ways the Houthis could further drive up the global price of energy.
"This raises a key question: whether the Houthis will escalate further by targeting Saudi infrastructure and shipping lanes more directly, or whether they will preserve this capability as an additional lever of pressure as the conflict evolves," he wrote. "With each passing day of the conflict, particularly in light of its expanding scope against Iran, the likelihood of this scenario materializing continues to grow. It is increasingly not a question of if, but when."
Journalist Spencer Ackerman similarly pointed to the Houthis' ability to cause economic havoc as the biggest concern about their entrance into the conflict.
"You thought it was bad when Iran throttled the Strait of Hormuz?" he asked rhetorically. "The Houthis have already proven they can keep the Red Sea closed despite a year of US Navy skirmishing."
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Israel Becomes First Nation to Recognize Somaliland—But Still Rejects Palestine
One foreign policy analyst said that Israel views Somaliland as a "strategic location as a launch pad for strikes on Yemen and potentially a place to forcibly 'relocate' Palestinians to."
Dec 26, 2025
Israel became the first nation to recognize Somaliland as a sovereign state on Friday, a move that was met with criticism from international observers who questioned its continued unwillingness to recognize a Palestinian state.
Somaliland, a breakaway region in the north of Somalia that is home to more than 6 million people, declared independence in 1991, but until now, no United Nations member states have recognized its claim.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described his government's recognition of the territory as being “in the spirit of the Abraham Accords,” a deal brokered by US President Donald Trump for Israel to normalize relations with some of its Arab neighbors, which has itself been accused of disregarding the issue of Palestinian sovereignty.
Speaking over a video call with Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, the president of Somaliland, Netanyahu said he was signing "Israel's official recognition of Somaliland and its right of self-determination," calling the friendship between the two nations "seminal and historic."
In a statement, Abdullahi said Israel's recognition "represents a milestone in Somaliland's long-standing pursuit of international legitimacy, reaffirming its historical, legal, and moral entitlement to statehood."
However, a report from the Guardian suggested that Israel's recognition of Somaliland has less to do with the self-determination of its people than with Israel's military interests. It cited a November report from a prominent Israeli think tank, which argued that Somaliland could be used as a base of military operations against Yemen's Houthis.
Somaliland, located in the horn of Africa just south of the Arabian Peninsula, already hosts an air base that the United Arab Emirates has used to conduct operations against the Yemeni militant group, which—until a "ceasefire" agreement was reached in October—launched regular attacks on Israel and its vessels in the Red Sea in what it said was an effort to pressure it to stop its genocidal military campaign in Gaza.
Egypt and Turkey condemned Israel's agreement with Somaliland, saying, "This initiative by Israel, which aligns with its expansionist policy and its efforts to do everything to prevent the recognition of a Palestinian state, constitutes overt interference in Somalia’s domestic affairs.”
Foreign ministers for the two nations joined those of Somalia and neighboring Djibouti on a call following the development, where they called for the continued unity of Somalia as an institution and condemned Israel's efforts "to displace the Palestinian people from their land."
Adil Haque, a professor at Rutgers Law School, pointed out on social media that, in August, Netanyahu met with Somaliland's leadership "offering recognition in exchange for helping Israel to illegally deport Palestinians from Gaza."
Somaliland was one of many nations reportedly approached by Israel to warehouse Palestinians exiled from the strip permanently—others included Indonesia, Uganda, South Sudan, and Libya.
Following reports at the time that Somalia was also in consideration, its president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, responded that "the idea of removing Palestine from their own land and putting them into another, other people’s land—I don’t see that that’s a solution at all."
A senior Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity with Israel's Channel 12 reportedly agreed that Netanyahu's recognition of Somaliland undermines his repeated assertions that there will never be a Palestinian state. As the Times of Israel summarized: "The official... points out that while Israel is the first country to grant recognition to Somaliland, the rest of the world considers the breakaway region an integral part of Somalia."
Tariq Kenney-Shawa, a fellow at the Palestinian Policy Network and a producer at AJ+, said: "To state the obvious, Israel wouldn’t recognize anyone unless there was something in it for them. Israel doesn’t give a shit about Somaliland apart from its strategic location as a launch pad for strikes on Yemen and potentially a place to forcibly 'relocate' Palestinians to."
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