The White House has issued a statement Wednesday saying that President Trump has instructed officials to call Saudi Arabia and call on them to lift the blockade on Yemen immediately, saying “this must be done for humanitarian reasons.”

This follows reports a few weeks ago in which the US was praising the Saudis for slightly easing the blockade, but also defending its continuation. Unspoken in all such statements is that US warships have participated in the blockade at various times.

The blockade has gotten more intense since early November, and chronic malnutrition in northern Yemen is rapidly heading toward mass starvation, with large numbers of people dying because of a lack of medicine.

The sudden US interest in halting the blockade is a major change, but may reflect growing concerns within Congress and among legal experts that the US government’s participation in the Saudi war, and endorsement of the Saudi war makes them legally culpable for the many, many war crimes being committed.