WASHINGTON – The State Department said on Friday it would withdraw a terrorist designation against the Houthi rebels in Yemen that the Trump administration had issued in its final days, revoking the penalties that President Biden’s aides feared would bring more pain to millions of starving people. than for the rebels.
Three officials familiar with the decision said the Biden administration notified Democrats in Congress late on Friday that it would discard the designation, which served as President Donald J. Trump’s final coup against the Houthis’ main patron, Iran.
Trapped in widespread poverty and civil war, about 80% of Yemen’s population of 30 million people live in areas under Houthi control. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said in November that Yemen was “in imminent danger of the worst famine the world has seen in decades”.
Senator Christopher S. Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, said in a statement that removing the terrorist designation “would save lives”.
“The designation did not affect the Houthis in a practical way, but it prevented food and other essential aid from being delivered within Yemen and would have prevented an effective political negotiation,” said Murphy.
A State Department official said that suspending the assignment does not justify the conduct of the Houthis, including attacks on civilians and kidnapping of Americans. But, the official said, keeping the rebels on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations would accelerate the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
The terrorist designation had been in effect for just under a month. It was never clear that this would inhibit the rebels who overthrew the Saudi-backed government in Yemen in 2014 and, according to some analysts, does not pose a direct threat to the United States.
But it had a frightening effect on commercial food importers and aid workers, who feared facing criminal penalties if their products fell into the hands of the Houthi. The rebels control the capital, Sana, and parts of the strategic port city of Al Hudaydah, where much of the world’s humanitarian aid is offloaded.
“We want to make sure that we are not doing anything to make life worse or even more miserable for the suffering people of Yemen,” said State Department spokesman Ned Price on Friday afternoon, before the designation was withdrawn.
The reversal was widely expected. Last week, on his first full day in office, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said that a revision of the terrorist designation was “the priority in my book”.
Authorities said the designation of a terrorist was suspended before it could have a widespread effect. Had it remained in place, the relatively decentralized rebel movement would have denied financial support and other material resources that are channeled through banks or other American institutions.
But the main patron of the Houthis is Iran, which continued to send support despite being hampered by severe US economic sanctions, making the effect of the designation on the Houthis more symbolic than striking.
As part of its pressure campaign against Iran, the Trump administration sought to contain Tehran’s military reach in Yemen, where it had sent arms and other assistance to Houthi fighters. Trump’s crackdown on rebels has also firmly planted the United States alongside Saudi Arabia and its allies in the war in Yemen, providing intelligence and billions of dollars in weapons against Congressional objections.
On Thursday, Biden said he would end US support for Saudi Arabia in his intervention in Yemen, after accusations of indiscriminate bombing that killed civilians and other military atrocities that could result in war crimes.
Mike Pompeo, who oversaw the terrorist assignment as Trump’s secretary of state, accused the Houthis of a December 30 attack on the civilian airport in the city of Aden, Yemen, which killed 27 people, as proof of the Houthis’ ability to terror. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, and both Al Qaeda and Islamic State are active in the area.
But the designation of a terrorist was hasty before the Trump administration could enact clear legal protections for importers and aid workers to ensure that goods continued to arrive in Yemen. The vast majority of food in Yemen is imported.
“This purely counterproductive designation has caused months of uncertainty as aid organizations, banks and importers of essential commodities like food and fuel have been left in limbo,” said Scott Paul, humanitarian policy leader at Oxfam America.
He said it was the humanitarian consequences of the terrorist designation – not the Houthis’ conduct – that “justified this reversal”.
Edward Wong contributed reports.