U.S. Strikes on Yemen and Other Headlines of the Day

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Top of the Agenda

The U.S. military has carried out air strikes on Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels since Saturday. U.S. President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the move was meant to protect “freedom of navigation” in the Red Sea—and serve as a warning to Iran. The strikes came after the Houthis announced plans to resume attacks on Israeli ships in response to Israel’s freeze on aid into Gaza. A spokesperson for the Houthi-run health ministry said that fifty-three people were killed in the weekend strikes, including five children and two women, while U.S. National Security Advisor Michael Waltz said the strikes killed multiple Houthi commanders. Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi vowed to respond by targeting U.S. vessels.

The background. The Houthi campaign against commercial ships in the Red Sea has posed a major challenge to global shipping for much of the Israel-Hamas war.

• The Houthis have attacked more than one hundred vessels since November 2023, leading shipping firms to choose alternate routes and driving up global shipping costs.
• When the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas began in January, the Houthis largely stopped those attacks.
• Israel cut off food aid to Gaza on March 2, saying that it aimed to pressure Hamas to extend the truce. The Houthis then said they would resume attacking “any Israeli vessel,” though no such attacks had been reported by this weekend, according to the Associated Press. Last week, the Houthis said they shot down a U.S. drone.

The implications. The weekend strikes were the Trump administration’s biggest military operation since taking office.

• Trump warned Iran in a social media post that its support for the Houthis must end “immediately.” Iran’s foreign minister responded that Washington “has no authority or business dictating Iranian foreign policy.” While Trump has said that he seeks a nuclear deal with Iran, Iranian officials have said they will not negotiate under pressure. 
• The U.S. strikes come amid uncertainties over the fate of the Gaza truce. Despite ongoing talks over a possible extension, Israel carried out air strikes in Gaza over the weekend that killed at least fifteen people over the span of a day, Gaza’s health ministry said.
• Hegseth said yesterday that Washington would keep hitting the Houthis until their attacks stop.

“This is consistent with Washington’s global interest in freedom of navigation and serves as a warning to Iran, which has provided the Houthis with the weaponry to menace the Mandeb Strait and Gulf of Aden. It is important to note, however, that the United States has not targeted Iran directly,” CFR expert Steven A. Cook told the Daily News Brief. “President Donald Trump has promised to withdraw the United States from overseas entanglements, but it seems that he and his advisors have determined that a military operation to ensure the safety of shipping in the Red Sea is worth the risk of open-ended conflict in the Middle East.”

Across the Globe

ISS astronaut rotation. A SpaceX capsule with four astronauts arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) yesterday. Four other astronauts already aboard the ISS are due to return to Earth in the coming days. They include Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, whose planned eight-day visit to the ISS lasted more than nine months due to technical issues with Boeing’s Starliner capsule.

Serbia’s antigovernment protest. More than 100,000 people took part in a Belgrade rally Saturday, according to a conservative estimate by the government; an independent monitor put attendance at 325,000. Protests that began in response to a train station collapse last November have grown into broader expressions of discontent with the government of President Aleksandar Vučić. Serbia’s prime minister announced his resignation in January but remains in office.

Russia’s advance in Kursk. After Russia made gains in the region where Ukraine launched an offensive last August, Ukrainian forces now only control a sliver of the territory, according to open-source maps. Kyiv had aimed for its control of Kursk to be a bargaining chip in potential talks to end the war in Ukraine. Trump said that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin are due to speak tomorrow about a cease-fire proposal.

Cuts to U.S.-funded media agencies. More than one thousand journalists at Voice of America were put on administrative leave and grants for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia were curtailed over the weekend. A Trump executive order mandated that their parent entity, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, be reduced to its minimum legal functions, deeming it and other targeted agencies to be “unnecessary.” Reporters Without Borders described the move as “a departure from the United States’ historic role as a defender of free information” and called for its reversal.

Disputed deportations. The Trump administration invoked wartime powers in the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to carry out migrant deportations on Saturday, government lawyers wrote in a court filing. A presidential proclamation invoking the Act for alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang was used to transfer 137 people to El Salvador, an unnamed White House official told the Washington Post. Also on Saturday, a U.S. judge ordered a temporary halt to the use of the Act for deportations. Deportation planes were in the air at the time of the ruling; the judge verbally instructed them to turn around, but they did not. The White House press secretary said the order was issued after the migrants “had already been removed from U.S. territory.”

Tensions in Tigray. A senior official in Ethiopia’s Tigray region pushed back on Friday against warnings of renewed conflict there, saying the country’s “federal government will not attempt to resolve the region’s challenges through force.” Last week, a dissident faction of Tigray’s main political party seized parts of the regional capital, Mekelle, and the region’s second-largest city, Adigrat, sparking fears of a return to civil war in Africa’s second-most populous country.

China’s stimulus blueprint. Beijing unveiled a list of actions designed to boost domestic consumption, such as increasing wages, pensions, and medical benefits. But it gave local governments the responsibility for implementing many of the measures without immediately promising significant new funding for those administrations. Top Chinese officials have sought to rebalance the economy away from a reliance on exports.

India-New Zealand trade talks. The countries agreed to begin negotiations on a free trade agreement, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said today. An Indian foreign ministry official said the deal could be concluded by the end of this year. The countries have tried to negotiate such a deal in the past, but talks fell apart ten years ago. India “will play a pivotal role” in New Zealand’s target of doubling its exports over the next decade, New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said.

The Day Ahead

• Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney travels to Paris and London.

• UN-facilitated talks on the future of Cyprus occur in Geneva.

• India’s premier geopolitics conference, the Raisina Dialogue, begins in New Delhi.