Saudi Arabia is pressing the U.S. to drop its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and return to the negotiating table, fearing President Trump’s move to close it off could lead Iran to escalate and disrupt other important shipping routes, Arab officials said.
The blockade is aimed at raising the pressure on Iran’s already crippled economy. But the officials said Saudi Arabia has warned Iran might retaliate by closing the Bab al-Mandeb—a Red Sea chokepoint crucial for the kingdom’s remaining oil exports.
The pushback is a sign of the risks and limitations of U.S. efforts to pry open the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran shut early in the war by attacking ships in the waterway, cutting off around 13 million barrels a day in oil exports and sending futures prices above $100 a barrel.
The blockade of Iranian ports went into effect Monday after Trump’s threats of bombardments and talks over the weekend failed to persuade Iran to relax its hold on the Strait of Hormuz.
“President Trump has been clear that he wants the Strait of Hormuz to be fully open to facilitate the free flow of energy,” said White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly. “The administration is in frequent contact with our Gulf allies, who the President is helping by ensuring that Iran cannot extort the United States or any other country.”
Saudi Arabia recently has been able to get its oil exports back up to their prewar level of around seven million barrels a day despite the blockage in the strategic strait by piping its crude across the desert to the Red Sea. Those supplies would be at risk if the Red Sea’s exit route were closed as well.
Iran’s Houthi allies in Yemen control a long stretch of coastline near the Bab al-Mandeb and severely disrupted the waterway for much of the war in the Gaza Strip. Iran is putting pressure on the group to close the chokepoint again, Arab officials said.
“If Iran does want to shut down Bab al-Mandeb the Houthis are the obvious partner to do it, and their response to the Gaza conflict demonstrates that they have the capacity to do it,” said Adam Baron, an expert on Yemen and fellow at New America, a policy institute in Washington.
Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency, which is close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Iranian paramilitary group that now controls the Strait of Hormuz, said a blockade could lead the country to close the Red Sea gateway.
Gulf states don’t want the war to end with Iran in control of the Strait of Hormuz, their economic lifeline. But many including Saudi Arabia are pressing the U.S. to resolve the issue at the negotiating table and are scrambling to restart talks, regional officials said. Despite the public hard line from both sides, the two combatants are actively engaging with mediators and open to talks if each shows enough flexibility, the officials said.
The Bab al-Mandeb strait is a narrow passage between Yemen and the Horn of Africa that connects the Red Sea with the Indian Ocean. The strait, whose name means Gate of Tears, leads to the Suez Canal and is one of the most important links for ships sailing between Asia and Europe.
Yemen’s Iranian-allied Houthi rebels have proved their ability to severely disrupt shipping through the gateway with attacks on vessels in the waterway. While those missile, drone and small-arms attacks tailed off after the October cease-fire in Gaza, traffic still isn’t fully back to normal.
The Houthis have largely stayed out of the current conflict between the U.S. and Iran after being pounded during a 53-day American campaign that ended in a cease-fire a year ago. But they remain an important part of Iran’s wider network of militia groups in the region and a deterrent held in reserve in case Iran needs to raise the pressure on the U.S.
The Houthis have said that closing Bab al-Mandeb is also one of their options.
Any attacks on ships in Bab al-Mandeb would be of special concern to Saudi Arabia, which diverted much of its crude-oil exports from its Ras Tanura facility in the Persian Gulf to the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea days after the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Iran on Feb. 28.
Before the war in Gaza, 9.3 million barrels of oil and other petroleum products passed through Bab al-Mandeb. That was cut in half after the Houthis began launching attacks on ships around the gateway, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Ali Akbar Velayati, a foreign-policy adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, said April 5 on social media that Iran looks at Bab al-Mandeb “just as it looks at Hormuz. And if the White House thinks of repeating its stupid mistakes, it will quickly realize that the flow of global energy and trade can be disrupted with a single signal.”
Saudi energy officials told The Wall Street Journal the kingdom had secured commitments from the Houthis that the group wouldn’t attack the kingdom or its ships passing through Bab al-Mandeb.
But the kingdom has told the U.S. the situation remains fluid, and the Houthis could enter the conflict more aggressively if pushed further by Iran, Arab officials said. Houthis could also start imposing fees on ships to transit, they said.
“That would then be a way for Iran to escalate back, saying that if you’re going to restrict our oil exports, we will then disrupt your Yanbu terminal exports,” said Erik Meyersson, the chief emerging markets strategist at the Swedish bank SEB.
Trump brought two aircraft carriers, half-a-dozen B-2 bombers, a squadron of advanced F-35 fighters, and destroyers armed with guided missiles to the fight with the Yemeni militant group last year.
During that conflict the Houthis nearly shot down two F-16s and shot half-a-dozen Reaper drones out of the sky. A missile attack on the USS Harry S. Truman last year forced the carrier to make a hard turn that sent an F/A-18 rolling into the Red Sea.
On Monday, Iran also levied threats of its own against neighboring ports.
“If the security of Iran’s ports in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman is threatened, no port in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman will be safe,” Iran’s armed forces said in a statement published by state-run IRIB News.
Write to Summer Said at summer.said@wsj.com and Jared Malsin at jared.malsin@wsj.com
