The Trump administration is looking to restore US diplomatic relations with Eritrea as part of Washington’s efforts to ward off Iranian influence in the Red Sea maritime shipping corridor.
Massad Boulos, US senior advisor for Arab and African Affairs, has indicated the Trump administration’s intentions to begin lifting sanctions on Eritrea, according to an article published in The Wall Street Journal this week.
The developments come as Yemen’s Iran-allied Houthis threaten to close the Red Sea’s Bab Al-Mandeb strait to maritime traffic in response to the US-Israeli war in Iran.
The plans are not yet official, but Boulos told Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi on Monday that the US would begin lifting sanctions on Eritrea soon, The Wall Street Journal quoted US officials as saying.
El-Sisi is facilitating talks between Isaias Afwerki’s government and Washington, which has maintained targeted financial sanctions on the ruling PFDJ and other Eritrean entities since 2021, largely due to Asmara’s involvement in the two-year war in Tigray.
Although Eritrea has a long history of sanctions, the UN and European Union (EU) lifted their embargoes on the country in 2018, amid what appeared then to be a normalization of relations with Ethiopia and other neighboring countries.
Normalization, however, did not last long. The governments of Abiy Ahmed and Isaias Afwerki had a falling out in the immediate aftermath of the Tigray war, in which the Eritrean military took an active role and is reported to have committed grave rights violations.
In October 2024, Eritrea, Egypt, and Somalia forged an alliance aimed at bolstering regional security and checking Ethiopian influence. The agreement came as Ethiopia and Somalia were caught in a dispute over the former’s maritime access-for-recognition agreement with breakaway Somaliland.
Egypt has since deployed troops in Somalia, while the Ethiopian government’s push for sea access via the port of Asseb has pushed tensions with Eritrea to the brink of another conflict.
