Secret U.S.-Houthi Talks in Muscat May Push Saudi Arabia Toward China

The United States has held secret negotiations with Yemen's Houthi movement in Muscat, Oman, according to a report on the Red Sea security track, offering the group a form of non-interference in exchange for guarantees that American vessels and interests would be exempted from targeting. Oman, which has long served as the region's discreet back channel — hosting earlier rounds of US-Iran contacts and Yemen peace diplomacy — again provided the venue, underscoring its unique position as a Gulf state maintaining working relations with Washington, Tehran, and the Houthis simultaneously. The talks come after nearly two years of Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb Strait, launched in solidarity with Gaza, which forced major carriers to reroute around the Cape of Good Hope and drew intermittent US and allied strikes on Houthi positions inside Yemen. A quiet US-Houthi understanding would mark a significant shift from that confrontation and would come without any parallel guarantee for Saudi Arabia, which has fought a grinding war against the Houthis since 2015 and has pursued its own fragile ceasefire track with the group. Riyadh risks being left exposed if Washington secures its own shipping lanes while Saudi territory and oil infrastructure remain exposed to Houthi drone and missile fire. That gap is precisely the opening Beijing is positioned to exploit: China has spent the past two years deepening economic ties with Saudi Arabia, including yuan-denominated energy deals and Belt and Road investment, while positioning itself as a mediator willing to engage all sides in Yemen, as it did in brokering the 2023 Saudi-Iran rapprochement. For Qatar and the wider Gulf, a US retreat toward narrow, transactional deals with non-state actors would reinforce a lesson Doha has drawn from Washington's recent regional conduct: that Gulf security cannot be assumed to rest on US commitments alone, strengthening the case for the kind of independent diplomatic channels Qatar has long cultivated.