The Houthis have defeated the US Navy
www.telegraph.co.uk
But the EU and France haven’t given up. They’re still fighting for freedom
  • albigu@lemmygrad.ml
    0·
    2 months ago

    That it was an EU ship that came to the rescue isn’t surprising. Despite the EU’s scarce naval resources, they are currently the only ones there. There isn’t a Prosperity Guardian ship within 500 miles. Back in May when the carrier USS Dwight D Eisenhower was present, the US had 12 warships on station providing a mix of missile picket and escorting duties. Now they have zero. The UK for one brief moment had three. HMS Diamond did some outstanding work as part of OPG but when she left, we left.

    There can only be one conclusion: that the US has given up on Operation Prosperity Guardian. It wasn’t deterring the Houthis and it wasn’t reassuring shipping so they might as well go and do something else.

    I’m shooting blind as I haven’t looked too deep into how the blockade has impacted global trade, but I think this makes perfect sense for the US.

    It isn’t that much further away around the Cape than through the Suez to arrive from the South China Sea to the US east coast, and AFAIK most trade actually happens with the West Coast through the Pacific or through Panama. So higher shipping costs harm Europe much more than they harm the US in this case.

    Just like the Ukraine War, sanctions on Russia and China and the Nord Stream, it seems the US is intending using this blockade to cannibalise Europe’s economy even further. Expect another year of negative growth in the EU, specially with China becoming a suitable replacement as a high-tech producer worldwide. They don’t have to go either through Suez or around the Cape in order to ship to a majority of the world’s population.