As expected, Trump has started the process for redesignating the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), and he is also going after USAID support for U.N. and humanitarian aid groups working in Yemen:
It also directs the US Agency for International Development to end its relationship with United Nations agencies, nongovernmental organizations and contractors “that have made payments to the Houthis, or which have opposed international efforts to counter the Houthis while turning a blind eye towards the Houthis’ terrorism and abuses.”
The Biden administration removed the Houthis from the FTO list for a very good reason, and it is a terrible mistake to put them back on. The Houthis are the de facto government of the part of Yemen where most of its people live. Labeling them as terrorists will do tremendous harm to the population. The sanctions that come with this designation threaten to cripple the economy, block remittances, and prevent the delivery of humanitarian aid. That is why humanitarian aid groups condemned the designation the first time, and it is why they are condemning it again now.
Scott Paul of Oxfam issued a statement in response: “We’ve seen before the devastating impacts of President Trump’s previous designation on Yemeni communities: in the months preceding the designation and during the week it was in effect, imports of necessities like food, medicine, and fuel all dropped and the economy fell into further crisis and the humanitarian situation deteriorated. The Trump administration is aware of these consequences but chose to move forward anyway, and will bear responsibility for the hunger and disease that will follow.”
The last time that Trump put the Houthis on the FTO list was at the very end of his first term. It was one of Pompeo’s parting shots to create problems for the next administration. Now we are looking at a much more grave situation where this decision will likely remain in force for at least the next four years. Trump has just delivered a death sentence to countless innocent people in Yemen so that he can look “tougher” than Biden. As Paul warned in his statement, “A designation would push the entire country’s economy from crisis into freefall.”
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Daniel Larison is a contributing editor for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.