The U.S. Trump administration decision to return Houthi rebels movement to its list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations on Mar. 4, not only reversed the Biden Administration policy—it also reignited debates over U.S. strategy in Yemen’s decade-long civil war and its humanitarian fallout, according to a TIME magazine analysis published Friday.
The Houthis have attacked Red Sea shipping and launched missiles toward both Israel and Saudi Arabia. But critics argue the terrorist designation—which carries penalties for doing business with the faction—could exacerbate an already dire situation where millions of civilians rely on aid to survive.
“The United States will not tolerate any country engaging with terrorist organizations like the Houthis in the name of practicing legitimate international business,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in the statement announcing the designation.
But restoring the “terrorist” designation may only have a tangential impact on the Houthis, says Nader Hashemi, associate professor of Middle East and Islamic politics at Georgetown University. “The sanctions that go with it don't really weaken these countries,” he says. “They're mostly, I think, grandstanding and an opportunity for, in this case, the Trump administration to try and distinguish himself from Biden and to present himself as really standing for himself against America's enemies.”
Other experts agreed the move is more about domestic political posturing than achieving change on the ground. Some said it may actually heighten the threat to shipping.
“If the Houthis continue to engage with these types of shipping attacks, now that there’s a terrorist designation it sort of contributes to greater tensions in the Middle East but doesn’t help the situation,” Hashemi says. “In that sense, there could be greater economic cost if ships travelling through the Red Sea are fired to choose different routes or if there are now greater insurance rates that have to be charged because of the threat of the attack. The consumers would have to pay the price for that added expense if businesses are charging more to send their ships through the Middle East.”
“When they're pressurized, [the Houthis] generally responds militarily,” says April Longley Alley, Senior Expert for the Gulf and Yemen at United States Institute of Peace. “They’ve been threatening for a while to retaliate, either inside of Yemen or outside.”
According to TIME’s analysis Yemen has a long history of political division—for much of the 20th Century it was two countries, North Yemen and South Yemen. The current war dates from divisions that surfaced during the Arab Spring that were encouraged by other nations, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which involved their own militaries. Those rivalries have hamstrung UN-led efforts at political settlements, and the Houthis have detained dozens of UN staff since 2021. The UN notably suspended operations in the Houthi-controlled Saada region after 8 more staff members were forcibly detained. In February, the U.N. World Food Programme announced that one of their aid staff died while in detention in Houthi-controlled northern Yemen.
“So many Yemeni staff have been kidnapped, tortured, for no reason but their alliance with the United States. And there’s something really sinister about that,” says Fatima Abo Alasrar, senior policy analyst for the Washington Center for Yemeni Studies. “It is a movement that stands as a threat to other religions, to other countries, and to the United States primarily.”
Advocates warn that being listed as a terrorist state by the U.S. may stifle humanitarian aid from other sources, which 80 percent of the population are critically in need of. “Innocent people are going to suffer,” says Hashemi. “Any humanitarian organization that wants to pursue exporter contracts or engage in bank transfers in order to facilitate aid will now be blocked because of this terrorist designation.”