Saudi Arabia has warned Donald Trump that Iran may shut down the Middle East’s remaining oil routes in retaliation for his naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
Riyadh fears Tehran could deploy its Houthi proxy in Yemen to disrupt the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, a critical artery carrying 10 percent of global trade between Asia and European markets via the Suez Canal.
Trump is facing mounting pressure from Riyadh to lift the Hormuz blockade and return to negotiations with Iran, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader, warned on April 5 that Iran ‘views Bab al-Mandeb as it does Hormuz.’
If Washington ‘dares to repeat its foolish mistakes, it will soon realize that the flow of global energy and trade can be disrupted with a single move,’ he added.
Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warned Tehran could throttle the Bab al-Mandeb, Arabic for ‘Gate of Tears,’ a stretch notorious for its treacherous navigation.
‘What share of global oil, gas, wheat, rice, and fertilizer shipments transits the Bab al-Mandeb Strait?’ he asked on April 3. ‘Which countries and companies account for the highest transit volumes through the Strait?’
The strait – just 18 miles wide at its narrowest point – is the gateway between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, and the only sea route connecting Asian and Persian Gulf oil to the Suez Canal and European markets.
At its peak in 2023, more than 9 million barrels of crude and petroleum – almost one in ten barrels consumed globally – passed through per day, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
The Houthis’ 2023-24 campaign already slashed that figure by more than half – to around 4 million barrels per day – forcing major carriers including Maersk to reroute around the Cape of Good Hope.
Saudi Arabia has managed to restore oil exports to prewar levels of around seven million barrels per day despite the Hormuz blockade, piping crude across the desert to the Red Sea.
A closure of Bab al-Mandeb would threaten those gains, compounding the kingdom’s woes while Hormuz remains restricted.
Adam Baron, an expert on Yemen and fellow at New America, a policy institute in Washington, told the Journal: ‘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.’
The Houthis have largely stayed out of the current conflict after being bombarded by the US in a 53-day campaign last year that ended in a ceasefire.
The warning comes after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman urged Trump to press ahead with the military campaign against Iran, describing it as a ‘historic opportunity’ to reshape the Middle East.
The crown prince argued that Iran represents a persistent threat to Gulf security and that allowing the regime to limp on would leave it free to menace the region again, according to reports last month.
Gulf allies, including Saudi Arabia, want to see Iran decisively weakened, with the Saudi side insisting any eventual settlement must neutralize Tehran’s missile capability and ensure the Strait of Hormuz cannot be effectively blocked in future.
Iran’s ability to threaten shipping remains real despite the US-Israel strikes, with intelligence indicating that significant missile, drone and coastal defense capacity still survives.
Trump’s blockade has sent shockwaves through energy markets, pushing US gas prices above $4 nationwide and driving global oil past $100 a barrel.
The President shut down Hormuz and has refused to allow other foreign vessels to enter or leave the waterway since Monday after previously threatening to resume military strikes on Iran.
Peace talks led by JD Vance in Pakistan collapsed after the US pushed to bar Tehran from enriching uranium for 20 years, failing to produce a long-term nuclear deal.
Trump and Tehran could return to the negotiating table in Pakistan later this week, with Saudi Arabia and Gulf allies pressing both sides to step back from the brink.
US wholesale prices surged last month as the Iran war drove up the cost of energy.
The Labor Department reported Tuesday that its producer price index – which measures inflation before it hits consumers – rose 0.5 percent from February and 4 percent from March 2025.
The year-over-year gain was the biggest in more than three years, with energy prices surging 8.5 percent from February alone.
Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called core producer prices rose a modest 0.1 percent from February and 3.8 percent from a year earlier. The gains in wholesale prices were smaller than economists had forecast.
The surge complicates matters for the Federal Reserve, which has faced intense pressure from Trump to cut its benchmark interest rate, while some policymakers are now inclined to raise rates as soaring energy costs deepen the inflation threat.
Wholesale prices can offer an early look at where consumer inflation might be headed.
Economists also watch it because some of its components, notably measures of health care and financial services, flow into the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge – the personal consumption expenditures, or PCE, price index.
The Labor Department reported last week that soaring gasoline prices pushed consumer prices up 3.3 percent last month from a year earlier, the biggest year-over-year increase since May 2024.
Compared to February, March consumer prices jumped 0.9 percent, the biggest gain in nearly four years.
