In the announcement, Pompeo says @StateDept has expressed “readiness” to address consequences to aid and Treasury “is prepared to” issue licenses. They’ve had since November to work it out and still haven’t. That should tell you how easy it is to do. https://twitter.com/jackdetsch/status/1348488608706146309

No responsible humanitarian agency or private business can afford to rely on these assurances. We’ll need to prepare for the worst. Because “they expressed readiness” isn’t a defense in US courts to criminal charges.

Even if we were to risk that, it’s not good enough to convince many of the banks and donors to keep the money flowing.

The best metaphor I can think of is a timely one: we’re injecting a fatal virus into a compromised patient and promising to invent a vaccine before the patient succumbs. It’s madness. And it’s only possible because Yemeni lives are assigned such little value

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By vaccine I meant treatment- though vaccine is probably on point since whatever licenses are ultimately issued won’t undo or address much of the harm