The Muscat Deal: What a Houthi-US Agreement That Cuts Out Saudi Arabia Means for the MMDA Coalition

Around 15 September 2026, American officials met Houthi representatives at the US embassy in Muscat and secured a pledge that the group would not attack US or Israeli shipping, while explicitly continuing its blockade against vessels linked to Saudi Arabia, the same country that twice asked President Trump for direct strikes and was twice refused. Somalia and Djibouti joined the fourteen-nation, Saudi-led Multinational Maritime Defense Alliance in July specifically to help secure Bab el-Mandeb; a separate US-Houthi understanding that protects some coalition members' shipping while leaving the coalition's own founder exposed raises a direct question about what the coalition, and Somalia's seat in it, is actually for. This brief assesses what the Muscat arrangement means for the MMDA's cohesion and recommends how Somalia should respond.

The United States has struck a separate, bilateral security understanding with the Houthis that protects American and Israeli shipping while leaving Saudi-linked vessels, and by extension a founding member of the coalition Somalia joined to secure the same waters, without equivalent protection. A coalition whose most powerful external backer has gone around it to cut its own deal is a coalition whose actual protective value for members like Somalia, who have no comparable direct channel to Washington or the Houthis, is now in serious question.

Reporting from CNN on 10 September described roughly 200 US military personnel already providing intelligence and targeting support to a Saudi-led campaign against the Houthis in a non-kinetic advisory role. On 11 September, as Houthi forces seized the port of Mocha, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman telephoned President Trump twice requesting direct US strikes; Trump refused both times. On 12 September, speaking in Dublin, Trump said the Houthis had told him directly they did not want to fight the United States and preferred it not intervene, adding that the remaining problem was confined to "one country" every outlet covering the remarks read as Saudi Arabia. On 14 September, US Central Command's Admiral Brad Cooper travelled to Saudi Arabia for coordination talks, with Washington again declining strikes while reaffirming intelligence-sharing. Around 15 September, American officials met Houthi representatives, including sanctioned spokesman Mohammed Abdul Salam and negotiator Abdul Malik al-Ajiri, at the US embassy in Muscat in talks brokered by Oman. The Houthis pledged not to attack American or Israeli vessels, explicitly excluding vessels linked to Saudi Arabia from that protection. Saudi Arabia had, in the same fortnight, seen all three of its main crude export routes affected in sequence. Somalia and Djibouti are founding members of the Multinational Maritime Defense Alliance Saudi Arabia assembled in July to secure Bab el-Mandeb and the wider Red Sea corridor.

The Muscat arrangement is not simply a diplomatic development alongside the MMDA coalition; it is evidence that the coalition's most consequential external backer has concluded a separate bilateral deal that functionally supersedes the coalition's collective security logic for at least one category of shipping. A coalition premised on collective deterrence against Houthi threats to shipping in Bab el-Mandeb now operates alongside a private US-Houthi understanding that guarantees safety for some flags and not others, based on a bilateral relationship none of the smaller member states, including Somalia, had any part in negotiating. For Somalia specifically, the exposure is direct: Somali-flagged or Somalia-linked shipping has no comparable side channel to either Washington or the Houthis, and the country's own coastal waters sit inside the same corridor the Muscat deal treats as negotiable on a country-by-country basis rather than through the coalition Somalia formally joined. The arrangement also confirms a pattern FIKIR Institute has tracked since the coalition's formation: decisions materially affecting Horn of Africa littoral states' waters are being made in Gulf and Western capitals without a visible channel for those states to shape them, and Muscat is the clearest evidence yet that this pattern extends even to the coalition's own founding sponsor being bypassed.

• Somalia formally requests clarification from Saudi Arabia and the MMDA coalition on whether the Muscat arrangement affects the coalition's operational commitments to non-US-flagged, non-Saudi-linked shipping, including Somalia's own. Directly tests whether the coalition retains independent value beyond what Washington's bilateral deal already covers, but requires Mogadishu to press an uncomfortable question to its coalition partners.
• Somalia and Djibouti jointly seek direct assurances from US officials that the Muscat understanding's protections extend to their own flagged and coastal shipping, not only to American and Israeli vessels. Secures a concrete, if narrower, form of protection outside the coalition entirely, but formalises exactly the kind of bilateral, side-channel diplomacy that left Saudi Arabia exposed in the first place.
• Somalia treats the coalition as functionally diminished by the Muscat deal and accelerates independent investment in its own coastal and counter-piracy security capacity, consistent with the recommendation in FIKIR Institute's prior Bab-el-Mandeb chokepoint brief. Builds resilience regardless of what the coalition or Washington decide, but requires funding and capacity Somalia does not currently have without external support.
• Somalia maintains its current coalition membership without further action, treating the Muscat arrangement as a Saudi-US matter with no direct bearing on Somalia's own position. Requires no new diplomatic effort, but leaves open the exact vulnerability, uncertain protection for non-aligned shipping in Somalia's own waters, that the Muscat deal has just demonstrated Washington is willing to create for other coalition members.

• Somalia should press the MMDA coalition's leadership and Saudi Arabia directly for clarification on whether Muscat's terms affect the coalition's collective commitments, since a coalition member finding out its own protections are uncertain through press reporting rather than direct communication is itself a governance failure worth naming.
• Somalia and Djibouti should seek explicit assurances, in writing, that any US-Houthi understanding extends equivalent protection to their own coastal and flagged shipping, given that neither state has Saudi Arabia's direct channel to Washington and cannot assume equivalent treatment absent a specific commitment.
• Somalia should accelerate investment in independent coastal security capacity regardless of the coalition's or Washington's next moves, treating the Muscat deal as further confirmation that reliance on external coalition guarantees carries risks Somalia's own resources should be reducing, not increasing.
• Somalia should use this moment, when even Saudi Arabia has been shown to lack guaranteed protection, to press for the standing Horn of Africa consultative mechanism within the MMDA that FIKIR Institute's earlier Bab-el-Mandeb brief recommended, since a coalition where even its founder can be bypassed has clearly demonstrated the representation gap smaller members face is not hypothetical.
• International partners, including the United States, should be pressed to state clearly whether bilateral arrangements like Muscat are intended to substitute for or supplement the MMDA coalition's collective framework, since coalition members cannot calibrate their own security planning without knowing which logic currently governs the corridor they all depend on.

Saudi Arabia asked Washington twice for direct military support and was refused twice, then watched the United States secure its own shipping's safety through a private channel that left Riyadh's vessels explicitly unprotected. If the coalition's own founder can be treated this way, Somalia's assumption that its coalition membership guarantees meaningful protection deserves urgent scrutiny, not continued faith that formal membership alone is doing the work.