Biden, Trump Both Prioritized UAE Over Stopping Mass Atrocities

Nathaniel Raymond (Yale Humanitarian Research Lab) says there is “almost no daylight” between Biden and Trump administration policy on Sudan, arguing that both prioritized relations with the UAE over stopping mass atrocities. The difference, he says, is perhaps that Trump’s policy is unfolding amid “clear violations of the Emoluments Clause.”

Raymond recounts breaking with the State Department after warning that El Fasher faced imminent catastrophe, as the Biden administration signed a Major Defense Partnership with the UAE — one of only two such agreements worldwide. “We were screaming bloody murder,” he says, urging a genocide determination after El Geneina. Instead, Washington and London pursued negotiations that treated SAF and RSF as equivalent, a stance that required “downgrading what was happening in Darfur,” even as satellite imagery showed villages being deliberately burned with civilians inside.