Sanders Says US Must End Support for UAE—’One of Trump’s Closest Allies’—as It Fuels Genocide in Sudan

As the world fears another massacre by the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan, Sen. Bernie Sanders emphasized that the rebel group’s string of atrocities is being funded by a nation with deep financial ties to President Donald Trump—the United Arab Emirates—and urged an end to US military support.

"In the midst of the wars in Gaza and Iran, we cannot forget the atrocities in Sudan," Sanders (I-Vt.) said Monday in a post to social media. "As many as 150,000 killed since 2023, 14 million driven from their homes, 30 million need humanitarian aid."

"All of this is fueled by the UAE—one of Trump's closest allies," the senator continued. "We cannot be complicit in genocide."

The warning came as RSF encircles El Obeid, a city of half a million people, including hundreds of thousands who have been displaced.

For weeks, the RSF has launched drone attacks that have killed dozens of civilians and damaged critical infrastructure including water facilities, markets, and hospitals. Food, water, and fuel supplies have been disrupted. Some civilians have begun to flee as many entry points to the city have been cut off.

The United Nations Security Council warned last month that there was an "imminent risk of mass atrocities" and demanded that the RSF halt its assault.

Human Rights Chief Volker Türk stressed that the siege tactics followed a familiar "playbook" to the RSF's October attack on El-Fasher in which at least 6,000 people were killed in just three days as part of a campaign that UN human rights experts said bore the "hallmarks of genocide," including ethnically targeted killings and sexual violence.

While the US State Department and other governments have similarly warned that the RSF could be on the verge of committing atrocities, Nicholas Kristof argued in a New York Times column this weekend that "officials won’t say openly... that the power behind the RSF is the United Arab Emirates."

Despite denials from Abu Dhabi, the UAE has been extensively documented as supporting the RSF through weapons shipments routed via Chad, financing the militia, and recruiting, training, and transporting mercenaries to fight alongside the group.

Kristof pointed out that the UAE "has particularly close financial ties to the Trump family," most notably the $2 billion investment by an Emirati firm last year that benefited his family's cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial (WLF), which has been a major source for the unprecedented growth of the president's wealth during his second term.

Recent financial disclosures reported this month by the Wall Street Journal show that Trump received $263 million from selling half his stake in WLF to a fund backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, one of the UAE's most powerful royals and the brother of its president.

During his second term, Trump has rewarded the UAE with more than a billion dollars in weapons sales that were fast-tracked to get around holds imposed by Congress, and made an agreement giving the Emirates unprecedented access to hundreds of thousands of advanced computer chips per year.

He added that "Congress must demand that the UAE cease its military support for the RSF and work with the international community and the Sudanese people to bring an end to this horrific conflict and provide the humanitarian aid that is desperately needed there."

As warnings about a brutal new RSF offensive have piled up, there has been a push in Congress led by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) for restrictions on the United States' ability to provide weapons to the UAE.

Last month, with help from some Democrats, the GOP-controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee blocked two amendments aimed at halting US weapons shipments to the UAE unless it stops supporting the RSF.

The committee has passed a weaker bill that allows the president to impose optional sanctions on individuals who supply weapons to Sudan's armed factions, which now awaits a full Senate vote. But the committee rejected Van Hollen's amendment prohibiting arms sales to the UAE.