Texas Border Business
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) reintroduced his legislation to designate the Iran-controlled Houthis, also known as Ansarallah, as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO). The bill would also impose additional sanctions on the Houthis’s top three leaders, contingent upon the President’s determination of their affiliation with the group. The Biden administration removed the FTO designation from the Houthis in 2021.
Upon introduction, Sen. Cruz said, “The Biden administration made a day one politically-driven decision to dismantle terrorism sanctions against the Houthis and their leaders. They knew the decision was unjustified, lied about portions of it on camera to the American people, and deliberately limited access to the full announcement. That decision 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. The administration was unwilling to full reveres their day 1 decision. I believe that President 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.”
The bill is co-sponsored by Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.).
Read the full text of the bill here.
BACKGROUND
The Houthis, or Ansarallah, are an Iranian-backed Shia terrorist organization that currently control northwestern Yemen.In the final days of the Trump administration, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo designated the Houthis as an FTO and an SDGT entity, which imposed sweeping sanctions on the terrorist group. Pompeo also designated three Houthi leaders – Abdul Malik al-Houthi, Abd al-Khaliq Badr al-Din al-Houthi, and Abdullah Yahya al Hakim – as SDGTs.
However, in February 2021, Secretary Blinken revoked the FTO and SDGT designations. Lifting these designations and associated sanctions enabled the Houthis to receive financial and material support necessary to wage a military offensive against U.S. and allied assets in the region. Their capabilities have become increasingly sophisticated, including anti-ship ballistic missiles, suicide drones, and precision-guided weapons systems capable of reaching Israeli territory – capabilities that previous FTO sanctions could have helped suppress.
While the Biden administration redesignated the Houthis as a SDGT entity in January 2024 in response to the Red Sea attacks, Secretary Blinken did not redesignate the group as an FTO. That designation would trigger far more effective sanctions that target third parties supplying the Houthis. Blinken also declined to re-designate the three Houthi leaders as SDGTs.
