While U.S. President Donald Trump announces that Yemen’s Ansar Allah will be “completely annihilated,” he is racking up costs for the American taxpayer, using a strategy that failed under the Biden administration for more than a year. Instead of pressuring Israel to allow aid to reach Gaza, the White House has declared war.
In October 2023, the Ansar Allah-led Yemeni government in Sana’a decided to intervene directly in the conflict between Gaza and Israel, firing more than 100 missiles and drones at the port of Eilat, many of which were shot down by U.S. naval vessels. By November, Yemen declared it would impose a blockade on all Israeli-linked ships in the Red Sea.
Ansar Allah made it clear it would continue to take action against Israel until a ceasefire was implemented in Gaza, justifying its intervention on humanitarian grounds, claiming an obligation under the Genocide Convention to act. The U.S., under the Biden administration, then decided to attack Yemen directly despite no immediate threat to American interests or vessels.
Then-Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced the launch of Operation Prosperity Guardian, a multinational naval mission that failed to achieve any of its objectives and was conducted primarily in the interest of Israel. The costs of the mission ran into the hundreds of billions, while U.S. taxpayers suffered at least billions in losses with no positive outcomes to show for it.
Through 2024 alone, Ansar Allah’s blockade in the Red Sea cost more than $200 billion. Although the U.S. and its British allies repeatedly launched airstrikes on positions across Yemen, they only succeeded in extending the blockade in the Red Sea to their own vessels instead of just Israel’s.
Trump began launching airstrikes across Yemen on March 15, which were deadlier to the country’s civilian population than comparable assaults during the Biden administration. Yet, there are no objective indicators that a favorable result has been achieved.
All governorates in Yemen under Sana’a’s control have been bombed, except for Amran Governorate.
This man from Amran is deeply upset and feels that his governorate has left alone , so he asked that this message be delivered to Trump
pic.twitter.com/QNIsxGwTCX— Ahmed Hassan أحمد حسن زيد (@Ahmed_hassan_za) March 19, 2025
Similar hyperbole that seeks to exaggerate the results of airstrikes was used by Pentagon officials in January 2024, after the former U.S. president ordered a large-scale bombing campaign. “We feel very confident about where our ammunition struck,” remarked Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims, the Joint Staff’s director for operations at the time. Offering no proof of success, Trump is following in the footsteps of the Biden administration.
In the first wave of Trump’s attacks against Yemen, the U.S. used RGM-109 Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles, estimated to cost between $1.4 million and $2 million per unit. In 2018, when Trump launched an attack on Syria with 66 Tomahawk cruise missiles, the estimated cost for munitions alone exceeded $92.4 million.
The munitions used by the U.S. Navy to shoot down Yemen’s missiles and drones cost between $1 million and $4.3 million each, provoking Department of Defense officials to voice their discontent. “That quickly becomes a problem because the most benefit, even if we do shoot down their incoming missiles and drones, is in their favor,” said Mick Mulroy, a former Defense Department official, in December 2023.
A former U.S. naval officer told MintPress News that the cost of Operation Prosperity Guardian was roughly $600 million per month. “This appears to be a much more intense and costly operation, so without all the specifics, it’s hard to predict how much this will cost,” the officer said. Operating an aircraft carrier alone is estimated to cost between $6 million and $8 million per day.
In early 2024, Politico reported worrying signs of an overburdened U.S. Navy struggling to deploy replacement ships to the West Asia region. In addition, Yemen’s air defense units continue to shoot down American drones. So far, Ansar Allah has downed 16 MQ-9 UAVs, each valued at $33 million, costing the U.S. a total of $528 million.
Despite the Biden administration deciding to attack Yemen on Israel’s behalf, now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio penned an op-ed last year complaining that the strategy was not aggressive enough. Under the Democratic administration, Ansar Allah was designated a “specially designated global terrorist” organization, a label that Trump replaced with the harsher “Foreign Terrorist Organization” designation upon taking office.
On Jan. 19, upon the implementation of a ceasefire in Gaza, Yemen ceased all offensive operations and ended its blockade in the Red Sea. However, just over two weeks ago, Israel violated the terms of the ceasefire and blocked all aid from entering the Gaza Strip, prompting Ansar Allah to issue a four-day deadline for allowing aid before restarting its blockade on Israeli shipping.
The immense cost to U.S. taxpayers of Trump’s assault on Yemen, which promises no results and primarily serves Israel’s interests, could easily reach the tens of billions at the current pace, especially considering the intensity of operations is much greater than under his predecessor. All of this could have been avoided had Washington pressured Tel Aviv to allow humanitarian goods to enter Gaza.
Feature photo | Locals inspect the site of an overnight U.S. airstrike in Sanaa, Yemen, March 20, 2025. Photo | AP
Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and hosts the show ‘Palestine Files’. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’. Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47
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