He gave Mexico’s drug cartels the same designation on Monday.
Though largely symbolic, there are some practical advantages for the U.S. when violent groups are added to the list.
Right now, there’s no greater gain than the “moral clarity” Trump is bringing to America’s fight against her enemies, Sen. Steve Daines (R-Montana) said on Washington Watch Thursday.
“There's moral clarity with President Trump, Marco Rubio, Elise Stefanik, our next UN ambassador. You've got Mike Huckabee, soon to be the U.S. ambassador to Israel,” Daines told show host Tony Perkins.
Support for Israel is the key to peace in the Middle East, Daines said.
“They understand what's going on with Israel in the Middle East," the Senator observed. "And the path forward in the Middle East is, first and foremost, make sure that Israel is strengthened and protected, and second, to make sure we diminish the capabilities of her adversaries.”
The terrorist designations give the Trump administration greater flexibility when considering a response against the groups, whether that response is force or finances, such as sanctions or the freezing of assets.
“It gives us more tools in the toolchest that allow us to ultimately destroy these organizations,” Daines said.
Daines recalled that during the Obama administration he spoke with generals frustrated because taking a “kill shot” against high-value targets required clearance from the White House before a soldier could squeeze the trigger.
“Obama required every single shot against what they called ‘jackpot targets,’ which would be known terrorist leaders, they had to go all the way through the Oval Office to get cleared. By the time they got clearance from the Oval Office, they’d lost their shot on a terrible bad guy,” Daines said.
Restoring power to the military
This key designation removes that time-consuming clearance requirement.
“President Trump's elected, he comes in, he tells the military, ‘Here’s the objective, destroy ISIS. You figure that out on the battlefield. I'm not here to run the war. I'm here to give you the tools you need to win the war,” Daines said.
Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State under Trump, designated the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization on Jan. 19, 2021, the day before Biden took office. A month later, Biden revoked the designation.
and Sen. John Kennedy (R-Louisiana) in November of 2023 introduced the Standing Against Houthi Aggression Act with the purpose of designating the Houthis as an FTO, but the bill never became law.
Twelve other Republican senators co-sponsored the bill.
“The Biden administration needs to send a strong, decisive message to the Iranian regime that the U.S. will not stand idly by and watch Iran’s proxies try and destroy Israel,” Daines said at the time.
No longer designated a foreign terrorist group, the little-noticed Houthis became known to many Americans when their Red Sea attacks disrupted international trade in 2023. The Red Sea, with the Suez Canal at its northern tip, is one of the world’s most-utilized shipping channels, the preferred route from Asia to Europe.
Thirty percent of global container traffic and billions of dollars of traded goods and supplies make their way through the Red Sea annually.
Most attacks focused on a narrow strait of water between Djibouti and Yemen, near the southern tip of the Red Sea.
A coalition of 10 countries was formed to police the Canal and respond to attacks, a group that included Great Britain, France and Italy. Noticeably absent were Egypt and Saudia Arabia, who declined to participate due to concerns in the Arab world about Israel’s continued bombing of Gaza.
Another threat to Israel
Though less sophisticated than some of Israel’s other enemies, the Houthis have fired on Israel’s mainland as well as its shipping in the Red Sea.
Though they’ve all lost soldiers and key leaders thanks to attacks by the Israel Defense Forces, Daines said Iran’s terror proxy groups – Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis – had reorganized under Joe Biden.
“I introduced the bill to designate the Houthis as a foreign terror organization, and lo and behold, President Trump, through the stroke of a pen, did the same thing. I couldn’t be more pleased,” Daines said.
