On Friday, the United States announced it has removed sweeping sanctions imposed on the Eritrean military, the country’s long-ruling political party, a major state-linked trading firm, and a top presidential adviser, a move that comes as growing global attention turns to the strategic Red Sea nation amid intensifying regional power shifts.
The U.S. Treasury Department confirmed in an official statement that the sanctions relief applies to three key Eritrean entities: the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice, the ruling party that has governed Eritrea for decades; the Eritrean national military; and the Red Sea Trading Corporation, which dominates nearly all of the East African country’s cross-border commercial activity. The administration also lifted punitive measures targeting Hagos Ghebrehiwet, a leading economic advisor to Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki.
The original sanctions were implemented in 2021 by the Biden administration, imposed in response to Eritrea’s direct military intervention alongside the Ethiopian federal government during the two-year civil conflict in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region. The African Union has estimated that the brutal conflict claimed as many as 600,000 lives, and it drew widespread global condemnation over documented allegations of mass atrocities and systematic civilian massacres.
Afwerki has led Eritrea since the country secured full independence from Ethiopia in 1993, and the two neighbors have had a long history of fractious relations. While they formed a temporary tactical alliance to fight together in the Tigray conflict between 2020 and 2022, that partnership quickly collapsed after the war, leaving the two nations locked in bitter tension across multiple regional flashpoints.
In recent years, Ethiopia has increasingly aligned itself with the United Arab Emirates and Israel, a shift that has reshaped power dynamics across the Horn of Africa. Multiple independent outlets including Middle East Eye have reported that Ethiopia is backing the UAE’s support for Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces in the ongoing Sudanese civil war, and Addis Ababa has allowed the deployment of Emirati-built drones and other advanced weapons systems from its territory. In contrast, Eritrea has thrown its support behind the opposing Sudanese Armed Forces, aligning with Egypt, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia in the Sudanese conflict.
Once a close partner of the UAE that hosted a Gulf state military base at its strategic Red Sea port of Assab, located just a short distance across the water from Yemen, Eritrea’s diplomatic and security ties with Abu Dhabi have deteriorated sharply in recent years. In an exclusive interview with Middle East Eye, Eritrean Foreign Minister Osman Saleh openly accused the UAE of pursuing “port imperialism” across the African continent, alleging the Gulf power is seeking to establish a joint Red Sea naval base with Israel.
Eritrea’s geographic position carries outsized global strategic importance: the country controls more than 1,000 kilometers of continuous Red Sea coastline, and its territorial waters form one side of the critical Bab el-Mandeb Strait, alongside the territorial waters of Djibouti and Yemen. At its narrowest point, the water crossing between Eritrean territory and Yemen is just 20 nautical miles, making the country a key player in any efforts to secure Red Sea shipping lanes.
Recent months have seen dramatic military shifts across the Red Sea: Houthi forces have completed a sweeping offensive that has given them full control over Yemen’s entire Red Sea coastline, and they are now advancing to capture the inland cities of Taiz and Marib, gains that would further erode the already limited authority of Yemen’s internationally recognized government.
Speaking to Middle East Eye, Saleh emphasized that Asmara rejects the idea that a military victory can end the ongoing conflict across the Red Sea. “There is no military option in Yemen, which must be given a chance to be peaceful,” he stated. He added that Red Sea littoral states should collectively oversee and manage freedom of navigation through the key waterway, but that any coordinated effort is severely complicated by Yemen’s lack of a unified, functional central government.