Action reverses the order issued by former President Donald just before leaving office on January 20.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has told Congress he intends to revoke the designation of Yemen’s Houthi movement as a terrorist organisation, a State Department official said on Friday.

“Our action is due entirely to the humanitarian consequences of this last-minute designation from the prior administration, which the United Nations and humanitarian organisations have since made clear would accelerate the world’s worst humanitarian crisis,” the official said.

Just days before his term in office ended on January 20, then-US President Donald Trump designated the Houthis a “foreign terrorist organisation” – effectively barring US citizens and entities from interacting financially with the group.

The United Nations describes Yemen as the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis, with 80 percent of its people in need, and it warned the Trump administration that the designation would push millions in Yemen into a large-scale famine.

The official has also stressed that the action has “nothing to do” with the US view of the Houthis and their “reprehensible conduct”, and repeated Washington’s commitment to helping Saudi Arabia to defend its territory against further such attacks.

The Trump administration exempted aid groups, the United Nations, the Red Cross and the export of agricultural commodities, medicine and medical devices from its designation, but UN officials and aid groups said the carve-outs were not enough and called for the decision to be revoked.