Remember the huge role the Sudanese civil war and the United Arab Emirates alleged role in supplying one side of it played in the 2024 U.S. presidential election? I sure don’t!
I mean, sure: It’s a bit hard to focus on a whole lot when we’ve got a living cadaver trying to run for another four years at the helm of a Titanic White House that has hit the icebergs of inflation, overspending, and geopolitical instability — but even if Joe Biden and/or Kamala Harris weren’t running against Donald Trump with that set of problems, I’d wager the matter would still poll right up there with voters, importance-wise, with “should the next president ban the Cadbury Creme Egg as an abomination against God and man?”
But the Democrats now care Very Deeply™ about this conflict … because President Donald Trump just signed a $200 billion dollar deal with the Gulf state during his Middle East tour.
“Democrats Chris Murphy, Chris Van Hollen, Brian Schatz and Tim Kaine, and Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, introduced resolutions of disapproval in the Senate that would block three arms sales to the UAE,” Reuters reported Thursday — the same day the deal was made.
“Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, and Sara Jacobs, the top Democrat on the panel’s Africa subcommittee, introduced resolutions of disapproval in the House of Representatives.
“The senators cited concerns that have been raised about Abu Dhabi arming Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries in Sudan’s civil war. The UAE has repeatedly denied such charges.”
So, just in case you’re wondering what this is all about: In 2023, the Sudanese Armed Forces (bad) and the Rapid Support Forces (also bad) began a civil war.
Both were/are technically military arms of the government of Sudan, to the extent that it has ever really been a functional government since independence in 1956, and both were part of a coup that overthrew dictator Omar al-Bashir in 2019.
Surprise of all surprises, these two factions did not get along even after getting rid of al-Bashir and started fighting each other — with the officially recognized government of Sudan accusing the UAE of involvement on the part of the RSF against the government-run SAF, and the UAE denying the allegations.
Should the U.S. go through with the arms sale to the UAE?
This is almost entirely unconnected to the $200 billion in new deals that Trump signed with the UAE during his visit to the nation, including a $14.5 billion investment from Ethiad — one of the national carriers of the country — in Boeing wide-body airliners powered by GE engines.
“Emirates Global Aluminum is also investing $4 billion to develop a primary aluminum smelter project in Oklahoma, and Holtec International and IHC Industrial Holding Company plan to build a fleet of small modular reactors in Michigan,” Fox Business reported.
“Qualcomm is also investing in a global engineering center in Abu Dhabi, which will ‘focus on AI, data centers, and industrial [internet of things],’ according to the White House.”
So naturally, we’re focused on … Sudan.
“The Trump administration’s end-run around Congress is irresponsible and will further embolden the UAE to violate the UN’s Darfur arms embargo and continue its support for the RSF and the killing of innocent civilians,” Meeks said in a statement.
“Despite international outcry, including by Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, credible evidence continues to show that the UAE is providing weapons to the RSF,” he said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Murphy’s concern was the fact that an Emirati-backed investment firm would invest in Binance via a so-called “stablecoin” backed by Trump’s World Liberty Financial cryptocurrency venture, calling it “nuclear grade corruption.”
However, this doesn’t seem to be the focus of the Democrats’ efforts to block the proposals; indeed, investigating corruption in Washington probably isn’t going to be a game that works out well for them, so we’re going with Sudan, I suppose.
“U.S. law requires congressional review of major arms deals, and lets members of the Senate force votes on resolutions of disapproval that would block such sales. Although the law does not let House members force such votes, resolutions must pass both chambers of Congress, and potentially survive a presidential veto, to go into effect,” Reuters noted.
“No block has ever succeeded and survived a veto.”
It’s worth noting, too, that little of this could even be diverted to the RSF even if such things were proved, which they haven’t been: “Among the sales targeted in the resolutions were a $1.32 billion sale of helicopters and equipment, $130 million for F-16 aircraft components and accessories, and $150 million for Apache, Black Hawk and Chinook aircraft parts, logistics and support.”
The RSF may be a relatively well-armed insurgent force given its former connections to the Sudanese government, but it’s a bit difficult to say you just came across an attack helicopter or six from some Adnan Khashoggi type.
And that’s not really the point. These are America-last individuals who don’t want Trump to succeed. They stood by idly, for the most part, during the last administration when Afghanistan fell to the Taliban. They had no problem with Biden kissing up to Saudi Arabia after he promised to make them a pariah nation over the state-ordered murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
But a $200 billion deal with the UAE by Trump? Put the brakes on that — there’s a complaint before the International Court of Justice (a body that makes Alvin Bragg look like Louis Brandeis in terms of legitimacy) that maybe, perhaps, kind of, the Emirates got involved in a small way on one bad side of a conflict where both sides are bad. That’s the scandal. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
They don’t love the Sudanese. Far from it. They just hate America — or rather, America when they aren’t in charge of it. They can’t stand it winning, and they’ll do whatever they can to block it. Sudan’ll do, if it’ll work.
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