Former US official: Houthis endanger commercial ships

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00:00So, just how significant is the threat posed by the Houthis to international interests,

00:07in particular those shipping interests you were talking about just now?

00:13Of course, a lot of the reasons why this hasn't escalated sooner is the Houthis hasn't been

00:18successful, especially when it comes to attacking U.S. military vessels.

00:24If they are, because at any given time, some of these defensive mechanisms can fail and

00:30they hit a U.S. vessel and kill U.S. sailors, this is going to escalate out of control.

00:38So I think it's important to point out that reasons why it stayed somewhat in the box

00:43is because of the ability to intercept these systems.

00:47That also includes, they have hit commercial vessels.

00:51They don't have the same capacity to defend themselves.

00:53That's why the U.S. military and our coalition partners have been doing that.

00:58But it has a serious effect on commercial shipping.

01:01They have to take an entirely different route.

01:02It adds billions and billions of dollars in expense, which, of course, is passed on to

01:08the consumers that take, for example, energy from this region, and that affects countries

01:13as far as the Far East.

01:15So this isn't just a regional issue.

01:17It certainly isn't just a U.S. Houthi issue.

01:19It's a global issue.