The US should provide support to Yemen's internationally recognised government and back regional allies to counter Houthi actions in the Red Sea, experts told Congress on Tuesday.
The House foreign affairs subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa heard that successive administrations have failed to permanently stop attacks on shipping in the Red Sea or curtail the group's influence in the region.
"The most sustainable way to reduce the threat is to empower Yemen to retake territory from the Houthis," said Nadia Al-Dawsari, associate fellow at the Middle East Institute. "This does not require US boots on the ground: this requires US leadership, and for the US to work with allies to provide the Yemeni government with the political, military and economic support it needs to restore state authority."
Yemen has been mired in conflict since 2014, when the Houthi rebels pushed the internationally recognised Yemeni government out of the capital Sanaa. Fighting between the two sides killed hundreds of thousands directly and indirectly, displaced more than four million, and caused a widespread, years-long hunger crisis.
A truce struck in 2022 has mostly held, but the Houthis have been carrying out attacks on international shipping near Yemen's shores for several years. The Iran-backed group has also formed connections with terrorist groups across the Middle East.
Allison Minor, director of the Project for Middle East Integration at the Atlantic Council, said that open-ended conflict ultimately gives the Houthis an advantage.
"Divisions within the anti-Houthi coalition have consistently jeopardised efforts to counter the Houthis," she said. Ms Minor said that the weakness of the Yemeni government is among the Houthis' "greatest sources of strength".
"The United States can help address both vulnerabilities. We can help partners unify around a credible strategy for resolving the conflict and strengthening the Yemen government."
US involvement since President Donald Trump returned to office has been mainly military. In March last year, the US carried out near daily strikes over about two months on Houthi bases in Yemen in response to attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea.
In early May, Mr Trump called a halt to the strikes and a declared a ceasefire, although the Red Sea attacks continued, escalating during the Gaza war and after the launch of the US-Iran war.
The US has also imposed a sanctions regime against the Houthis that has severely affected their ability to generate revenue, although they have found ways to work around it, the experts said.
"We've done air strikes and they work until they regroup, and then you mentioned that we do economic sanctions, but then they work around it," Democratic Congressman Jared Moskowitz said. "So if military interdiction isn't working, intervention isn't working and economic sanctions aren't working, what do you suggest?"
Ms Al-Dawsari repeated that the US needs to support the Yemeni government as well as regional allies with arms, training and sharing intelligence. She also suggested putting pressure on countries that supply the Houthis with weapons or other forms of support, such as Russia and China.
"Most of the weapons lending to the Houthis come from Chinese companies," she said. "So the United States could engage diplomatically with China to pressure the Chinese government to crack down on these companies."
Democrats on the committee said a lack of a strong US diplomatic presence in the Gulf was not helping the situation, highlighting that the Trump administration had decided to eliminate the role of special envoy to Yemen and that it has still not appointed ambassadors to key regional allies including Saudi Arabia.
"They don't have the bandwidth [for Yemen], so indeed they're not effective in that area," Congressman Bill Keating said.
Ultimately, the experts said the current US approach to Yemen was not working and that major changes were needed.
"This is a very adaptable group. We can't deploy an old playbook to a group that is always three steps ahead of us," said Ms Minor.
