Iran has been strangling the world's oil supply through the Strait of Hormuz for months – and you're paying for it every time you fill up your tank.
Now they're moving on a second chokepoint that could drive prices even higher.
And the single Biden blunder that made all of it possible will infuriate you.
Biden Removed the Houthi Terrorist Designation and Somali Pirates Are the Result
Somali pirates have seized three oil tankers in the past two weeks, and the men doing it aren't freelancing.
When Trump left office in January 2021, the Houthis were a contained regional militia.
Within his first month in office, Biden reversed Trump's terrorist designation of the Houthis – handing them a lifeline and a legitimacy boost in the same stroke.
Then his administration unfroze Iranian funds, restoring the cash pipeline that flows from Tehran to every proxy group Iran runs – including the Houthis.
While Biden held press conferences about diplomacy, the Houthis were receiving GPS satellite devices, advanced weapons, and military training from Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Former Israeli naval officer Ido Shalev told Fox News Digital what that four-year window built: "Somali and Houthi-linked groups are teaming up – using skiffs and new tech to strike ships with coordination not seen in a decade."
Biden didn't just ignore this.
He paid for it.
Houthis Gave Somali Pirates GPS Devices and Trained Them in Yemen
The alliance was assembled while Biden looked the other way.
Mohamed Musa Abulle, deputy intelligence director of the Puntland Maritime Police Force, confirmed it on the record: Somali pirate groups received GPS devices and weapons directly from Houthi-aligned actors in Yemen, and security agencies believe some pirates received military training there as well.
A 2025 UN report put the arrangement in writing: al-Shabaab held direct meetings with Houthi representatives in 2024 and struck an explicit deal – advanced weapons and training flowing one direction, increased piracy and ransom collection flowing the other.
That's not random criminality.
That's a franchise operation with Iran as the franchisor.
The Strait of Hormuz crisis – triggered when the U.S. and Israel struck Iran in February 2026 – forced Saudi Arabia to reroute millions of barrels of crude per day through its East-West pipeline to the Red Sea port of Yanbu.
Shalev identified exactly what that rerouting created: a previously quiet shipping corridor transformed into a highway of high-value tankers sailing past Somalia's coast, with Brent crude near $111 a barrel and the prize for a successful hijacking higher than it has ever been.
The Houthis spent four years under Biden building the network to cash in on precisely this kind of moment.
America Crushed Somali Piracy Before and the Navy Can Do It Again
Somali piracy peaked in 2011 – 212 attacks across the Indian Ocean, Red Sea, and Gulf of Aden, costing the world economy $18 billion that year.
Armed pirates were operating as far as 1,000 nautical miles from the Somali coast.
Then the U.S. Navy got serious.
Alongside NATO's Operation Ocean Shield and the EU's Operation Atalanta, America deployed sustained naval presence, mandated armed guards on vessels, and built prosecution infrastructure so pirates knew capture meant prison.
By 2014, attacks had dropped from over 200 to 12.
In the seven-year stretch from 2016 to 2022 – eight total attacks.
The formula wasn't complicated: show up, stay, and make piracy expensive.
Biden's drawdown of that presence – combined with diverting remaining naval assets to counter Houthi missile threats in the Red Sea – opened the vacuum now being filled with Iranian technology and ransom money.
Shalev named it directly: naval forces tied up with missile threats created "a security vacuum" that pirates are exploiting to travel vast distances in skiffs and board vulnerable tankers.
Vacuums don't stay empty.
Biden left one across two oceans and Iran's network filled both.
Trump knows something Biden never figured out: you don't negotiate with people who read restraint as weakness.
The Houthis spent four years watching Biden flinch every time they escalated – and they built an empire on it.
Three hijackings in two weeks is the signal.
The question is whether the order comes before it becomes thirty.
Sources:
- Ido Shalev, "Somali Pirate and Houthi Alliance Targets $1T Oil Trade Route," Fox News Digital, May 3, 2026.
- Mohamed Musa Abulle, quoted in "Houthis Provide Somali Pirates With Advanced Tech," Africa Defense Forum, January 2026.
- "Expanding Al Shabaab–Houthi Ties Escalate Security Threats to Red Sea Region," Africa Center for Strategic Studies, September 2025.
- "Somali Pirates Stage Comeback With Houthi Support," The Washington Times, December 2025.
- UNCTAD, "Strait of Hormuz Disruptions: Implications for Global Trade and Development," March 2026.
- Al Jazeera, "Oil Prices Rise Despite Iran's Proposal to Reopen Strait of Hormuz," April 28, 2026.