The Biden administration’s recent reversal of U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen is a welcome departure from a foreign-policy agenda that yielded little but suffering—and a reliable market for U.S.-made weapons. But President Joe Biden’s move shouldn’t be hailed as a panacea for the Yemeni people, who have endured immeasurable suffering over the past six years. Rather, resolving the world’s worst humanitarian crisis will require a larger paradigm shift in foreign policy.
The reason Yemen’s humanitarian situation is so acute is because its people are starving. Data from the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) reveals that 16.2 million of the country’s 30 million people need food aid. According to the U.N., nearly half of all Yemeni children under the age of 5 suffer from stunted growth because of malnutrition, with some 400,000 children now in danger of dying from severe acute malnutrition—an increase of 22 percent over 2020.
