US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the US would respond if Yemen’s Houthis follow through on their threats to impose a blockade on commercial shipping in the Red Sea, saying that the US “will just have to take care of business”.

"If something like that happens, we take care of it," Trump told reporters during a White House meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun. "You know, we've done that with the Houthis before, and we haven't heard from them in a while since we did what we did originally."

The Houthis declared a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia on Monday, raising fears that such a closure would remove a critical alternative route for crude oil coming out of Saudi Arabia and intensify energy shortages, impacting the global economy.