Commercial traffic continues flowing through the Red Sea’s southern choke point despite renewed Houthi threats, with ship-tracking data showing more than a dozen oil tankers sailing in the vicinity of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait as of Tuesday evening.
This comes after shipping through the waterway rose on Monday as President Donald Trump signaled a return to negotiations to end the US-Iran war, following the collapse of a ceasefire earlier this month that once again brought traffic in the Strait of Hormuz to a near standstill.
Still, clashes between Saudi Arabia and Yemen's Houthis have added another layer of risk for a global economy attempting to absorb the loss of Gulf oil exports through Hormuz. Simultaneously, shipping operators remain cautious in the Red Sea, with many tankers transiting the Bab el-Mandeb choke point on Tuesday openly broadcasting their Chinese or Russian crews as they signal to the Iran-backed Houthis that they aren’t affiliated with Western or Saudi interests.
Details: Red Sea transits have slowed since the Yemeni group declared a blockade on Saudi shipping on July 20 and threatened the kingdom's oil facilities. The Houthis on Monday targeted crude transport infrastructure linked to Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline, the system that has enabled Riyadh to continue exporting significant volumes of oil despite the Hormuz disruptions
