Analysis | Yemen’s naval blockade of Saudi Arabia: Causes and consequences

Pars Today — Yemen’s armed forces spokesman has announced a ban on shipping and the imposition of a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia under the principle of “blockade in return for blockade.”

According to Pars Today, Yahya Saree, spokesman for Yemen’s armed forces, issued a statement on July 20 saying that Saudi Arabia has, for nearly twelve years, imposed a land, sea, and air blockade on Yemen, targeting the country’s ports and airports and increasing the suffering of the Yemeni people through economic pressure and the exploitation of national resources.

The statement said that Yemen’s blockade “has no legal, humanitarian, or legitimate basis” and argued that the Yemeni people have the right to respond to Saudi actions and attacks—including strikes on Sana’a International Airport—by using all means at their disposal.

It further emphasized that Yemen has the right to adopt “a blockade in response to blockade” and to answer any escalation with “a comprehensive and reciprocal escalation.”

Mohammed Abdulsalam, head of Yemen’s negotiating delegation, had previously stated that the announcement of a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia was a step that Sana’a had been compelled to take after Riyadh refused to respond peacefully to Yemen's legitimate demands.

Saudi Arabia has condemned the announcement by Yemen’s armed forces of a naval blockade against the kingdom. In a statement, the Saudi Foreign Ministry said that Riyadh would take all necessary measures, in accordance with international law, to protect its vessels.

Yemen’s new strategy toward Saudi Arabia appears to be based on the principle of reciprocity and countermeasures. After enduring years of blockade imposed by Saudi Arabia—with continued Western support—the Yemeni side has now declared a new equation of “blockade in return for blockade” in its confrontation with Riyadh. According to the report, such a response had long been anticipated from Yemen’s resistance movement at the regional level.

At the same time, the activation of this new policy by Sana’a has heightened concerns in Riyadh over the possibility that the Bab el-Mandeb Strait could be closed to Saudi shipping. Saudi officials reportedly regard the threat as serious and believe that Sana’a possesses the military capabilities necessary to disrupt traffic through the strategic waterway, whose importance to global trade has grown amid ongoing geopolitical tensions in the Strait of Hormuz.

The report concludes that the use of Bab el-Mandeb as leverage within Ansarullah's new deterrence strategy may soon move from rhetoric to implementation. Under this framework, it says, Saudi Arabia’s failure to respond to Yemen’s humanitarian demands could raise the prospect of a broader conflict with Riyadh.

Within the framework of this new equation, the possibility of banning Saudi oil tankers bound for the kingdom’s ports has been raised for the first time since the outbreak of the Yemen war in March 2015.

Economic analysts believe that, should such a scenario materialize, oil prices could rise to more than $150 per barrel. According to these assessments, the measure could disrupt the export of more than seven million barrels of Saudi oil per day through the East–West pipeline to the port of Yanbu, dealing a direct blow to the kingdom’s oil revenues.

They also warn that even a brief interruption in oil exports could intensify the global energy crisis and trigger severe market volatility, particularly at a time when the continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz—attributed in the report to U.S. attacks against Iran—has already pushed global oil prices higher.

The consequences of such tensions would not be limited to the port of Yanbu. Jeddah Port, which in recent months has become one of the region’s key logistics hubs and an important alternative route to the Strait of Hormuz, could also face disruptions.

Because roughly 70 percent of Saudi imports pass through Jeddah, and because the port plays a major role in the transit of goods to Gulf countries such as Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain, any suspension of its operations could trigger a crisis affecting supply chains, manufacturing, and investment across the region.

Under the framework of the “port for port” equation, the closure of the ports of Yanbu and Jeddah has been identified as a potential objective of the naval blockade. According to the report, any country that participates in the blockade of Yemen or in the Saudi-led military coalition could face restrictions on vessels bound for its ports in the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait—measures that Yemen describes as falling within its right to self-defense.

As a result, Saudi Arabia’s war against Yemen appears to have evolved beyond a purely military confrontation along the two countries’ borders into a broader conflict centered on energy security and the region’s strategic trade corridors.

At a time when Yemen has announced new deterrence tools in response to the continuation of the Saudi blockade, any escalation in the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait could have consequences extending well beyond Saudi Arabia, affecting global trade, energy markets, and maritime security.

Accordingly, the report argues that Yemen’s declared threat of a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia is not merely part of a media campaign, but rather reflects shifts in the balance of power that have emerged over years of conflict and blockade. These developments, it concludes, could prompt both regional and international actors to reassess their strategic calculations.