Iran Orders Houthis to Seal Bab el-Mandeb if Trump Bombs Power Grid

The last functioning bypass for global oil is now the explicit next target.

Key takeaways

• Iran has asked Houthi forces to stand ready to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait if the U.S. strikes Iranian power infrastructure, per a Reuters exclusive citing three sources.
• Trump publicly threatened on July 15 to bomb Iran's power plants and bridges "next week" unless Tehran returns to the negotiating table, making the trigger condition explicit.
• A simultaneous disruption of both Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb would put roughly 25% of global oil and gas supply at risk and collapse Saudi Arabia's Yanbu bypass route, the only relief valve keeping oil below vertical since February.

Iran has asked Yemen's Houthi movement to stand ready to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait if the United States strikes Iranian power infrastructure, per a Reuters exclusive citing two senior Iranian sources and one regional source familiar with the matter. The request has been conveyed to Houthi allies and discussed within Iran's leadership. It has not been officially confirmed by Tehran or the Houthis, both of whom were not immediately available for comment, the standard sourcing condition for intelligence-grade diplomatic scoops.

The trigger is not hypothetical. On July 15, President Trump told Fox News's Trey Yingst: "Next week it gets really bad for them because next week comes the power plants. Next week comes the bridges. We're going to knock out all their power plants. We're going to knock out all their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate." Reuters also reports that Houthi missiles and drones have already been deployed near Bab el-Mandeb, with IRGC representatives in Yemen controlling the timing of any closure order.

The Bypass Is Now the Target

The Strait of Hormuz has been largely disrupted since U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran began February 28, 2026. EIA data shows Hormuz flows dropped from roughly 20.4 million barrels per day to approximately 14.6 million barrels per day in Q1 2026, a drop of nearly 30%. The Dallas Fed and a Congressional Research Service report both flagged the cascading supply effects of that disruption in the months following.

Saudi Arabia absorbed the initial shock by activating the East-West Pipeline at full 7-million-barrel-per-day capacity, routing roughly 70% of its energy exports through the Red Sea port of Yanbu instead of through Hormuz. That reroute kept oil from going vertical in the immediate aftermath.

Bab el-Mandeb is where those Yanbu exports exit into global markets. Closing it doesn't add to the Hormuz problem; it eliminates the workaround entirely. Analysts estimate a simultaneous disruption of both chokepoints would put roughly 25% of global oil and gas supply at risk, per ORF Middle East's dual-chokepoint analysis. There is no third bypass.

Torbjorn Solvedt, principal Middle East analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, put it plainly via Reuters: "If fighting intensifies and spills over into Red Sea export infrastructure and shipping, it will threaten the only major alternative route for oil exports from the region."

Nadwa Al-Dawsari of the Middle East Institute added: "This threat should be taken seriously. With recent escalation and U.S. strikes on Iran, Tehran has already signaled that the Bab al-Mandab could become part of its response."

Brent crude has risen significantly since the conflict began. War-risk insurance premiums are reported to have soared dramatically over the same period.

What the Math Actually Looks Like

Iran's strategy is legible: construct a dual-chokepoint trap where any escalation by the U.S. triggers an automatic, near-instantaneous energy supply shock at a scale no strategic petroleum reserve release can offset.

The Hormuz closure removed roughly 6 million barrels per day from normal transit. The Saudi East-West Pipeline absorbed part of that, but Saudi Arabia's Yanbu exports, 70 to 75% of its total, are directly exposed to a Bab el-Mandeb blockade. The IEA estimates Hormuz alone handles roughly 20% of global seaborne oil. Bab el-Mandeb, under current crisis-rerouting conditions, is carrying approximately 7% of global energy supply on top of that. The overlap isn't additive in a clean accounting sense, but analysts modeling a simultaneous closure land at 25% of global oil and gas under simultaneous threat.

That is the energy shock that breaks the Fed's already constrained policy space. Sticky inflation from the Hormuz disruption is already complicating rate decisions. A second supply shock spikes CPI further, stalls growth, prevents cuts, and balloons fiscal deficits in real terms. The war premium on every hard asset in the world resets higher. Prior TFTC coverage of the Hormuz closure and the NYK Line CEO's assessment that Hormuz would remain below half-capacity for months laid out the structural damage before this Bab el-Mandeb escalation was even on the table. That context makes the Reuters reporting more alarming, not less.

Andreas Krieg of King's College London described the Bab el-Mandeb threat as "another nuclear option" for Iran, one deployed only if the IRGC concluded all-out war was unavoidable.

What to Watch

The trigger is Trump's threatened power-plant strikes, which he placed "next week" on July 15. If those strikes proceed, the Houthi closure order is live. A ceasefire or verified negotiation breakthrough before strikes land is the primary scenario that dissolves this pressure; the Saudi-Tehran diplomatic channel is the one to watch for early signals. The secondary question is capability: U.S. and Saudi interdiction of Houthi missile and drone positioning at Bab el-Mandeb could neutralize the threat before it executes, keeping this rhetorical rather than kinetic. Maersk had resumed Red Sea transits as of July 9, that calculus changes immediately if the strait closes.

Sources

• Reuters exclusive: Iran asks Houthis to stand ready to close Bab el-Mandeb
• Trump Fox News interview, July 15, 2026, power plant threat
• EIA World Oil Transit Chokepoints
• Dallas Fed: Hormuz closure and global oil impact
• Congressional Research Service: Iran Conflict and the Strait of Hormuz
• ORF Middle East: Double Chokepoint, Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb closure impact
• IEA: Strait of Hormuz oil security