Asmara, Eritrea: For five years, Eritrean businesses and state institutions lived under American sanctions that the government says inflicted "incalculable damage" on one of Africa's most isolated economies. On Friday, those measures fell away — not because of a peace settlement, but because of geography.
The United States has lifted sanctions on Eritrea, with the State Department saying President Donald Trump had chosen not to renew the 2021 measure targeting the country on the strategic Red Sea "to advance US regional interests".
Eritrea's Horn of Africa location could prove pivotal amid the ongoing US-Israel war on Iran, as the Red Sea has become a key oil shipping route with the Strait of Hormuz blocked. At the same time, shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb strait has come under increasing pressure from recent Houthi advances in Yemen against forces of the country's internationally recognised government.
The administration of former President Joe Biden imposed the sanctions in November 2021, targeting Eritrean forces, President Isaias Afwerki's ruling party, the People's Front for Democracy and Justice, and other players in the state. Eritrean troops were accused of committing atrocities during the conflict in Ethiopia's Tigray region, where they backed the Ethiopian federal army. The African Union said the war may have killed up to 600,000 people, and several hundred thousand remain displaced.
The Treasury Department said it was lifting sanctions on the PFDJ, the Eritrean military and the Red Sea Trading Corporation — the company that controls much of Eritrea's trade with the outside world — as well as on Hagos Ghebrehiwet, a key economic adviser to President Isaias Afwerki. The sanctions had been renewed annually under a presidential declaration of a "national emergency", including last year by the Trump administration, but on Friday the US Treasury published a notice saying the national emergency had "expired".
Eritrea welcomed the move. "The unilateral sanctions imposed by the Biden administration five years ago were not warranted by any metrics … In this respect, we welcome the gesture and remedial measures by the Trump administration," Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel told the Reuters news agency.
A State Department spokesperson told the AFP news agency that, while implementation of the deal that ended the war had been "uneven", Washington felt it was "time to adapt our foreign policy to current realities and collaboratively engage with both countries to advance US interests".
Eritrea holds more than 1,000 kilometres of Red Sea coastline, and the territorial waters of Djibouti, Eritrea and Yemen comprise the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. At its narrowest point, the distance between Eritrea and Yemen across the Red Sea is approximately 20 nautical miles. Houthi forces have taken control of the entirety of Yemen's Red Sea coastline in a sweeping military offensive and are now battling for the hinterland cities of Taiz and Marib.
The regional alliances around Eritrea have shifted sharply. Ethiopia has moved closer to the UAE and Israel, and is helping the UAE support the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan's civil war, deploying Emirati drones and other weapons systems. Eritrea supports the Sudanese Armed Forces, alongside Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Eritrea was once close to the UAE and hosted the Gulf state at a military base in Assab, a short distance across the Red Sea from Yemen, but those ties have severely frayed. In an interview with Middle East Eye, Foreign Minister Osman Saleh accused the UAE of pursuing "port imperialism" across Africa and seeking a Red Sea naval base for joint use with Israel.
Saleh said Asmara saw no military solution to the war raging across the Red Sea. "There is no military option in Yemen, which must be given a chance to be peaceful," he said. He added that littoral states must decide how to manage freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, a task complicated by the fact that Yemen is not united under a cohesive government.