'UAE Lobbying' Behind Sudan Exemption from US Travel Ban

Sudanese nationals have been dropped from Trump's US travel ban as a result of 'UAE lobbying' according to Ryan Grim, Washington bureau chief at The Intercept. This allegation comes just a day after Amnesty International revealed that the UAE had been involved in using UK shell companies as key intermediaries to export millions of pounds worth of weaponry to the arms embargoed South Sudanese government.

As President Trump expanded his travel ban today to eight more countries including North Korea, Venezuela and Chad, citizens of Sudan have been dropped from the list of countries affected.

Though the White House gave no official explanation for the reversal in decision, the Washington post reported that sources close to the current administration suggest that it was arrived at due to Sudan's recent co-operation with the US in terms of national security and information sharing.

However, Washington bureau chief at The Intercept, Ryan Grim, has alleged that this decision has far more to do with geopolitical calculations on behalf of the Trump administration concerning the US backed Saudi led-coalition war in Yemen.

Grim tweeted, “Sudan getting dropped from the travel ban comes as the UAE has been lobbying hard for them in DC in exchange for mercenary support in Yemen”

Since the outset conflict, Sudan have helped the UAE and other Middle Eastern countries in their fight against the Houthi rebels in the Yemeni civil war by supplying thousands of ground troops. Furthermore, the recent omission of Sudan comes in spite of the fact that they remain one of the three countries, alongside Iran and Syria, listed by the US of supporting terrorism.

Grim noted in a separate tweet “that the UAE has figured out how to use our Muslim ban as a tool in its war against Yemen has a special irony to it”

These allegations come just a day after Amnesty International revealed that the UAE, along with Ukraine, had been in the process of procuring £125m of weaponry on behalf of the South Sudanese government, in direct contravention to the Arms Trade Treaty to which both country's are signatories.

Documents obtained by Amnesty found that the two country's had been taking advantage of “glaring gaps in UK company regulation” by using UK based shell companies as key intermediaries for illicit arms deals to South Sudan, the report specifically referenced a deal brokered in 2014 in which UK shell company 'S-Profit Ltd' was used a “supplier” in a deal to export £34m of weaponry to the UN arms embargoed South Sudanese government.

Amnesty claim that the British government have been fully aware of these activities but have so far done nothing to address them or close the regulatory gaps that allow them to take place.

Allegations concerning Emirati lobbying, alongside Amnesty's recent findings, reveal the kinds of double standards that so often lay at the heart of both British and American foreign policy.

As exemplified in these cases, the hazy network of relations that governs UK and US dealings with the UAE authorities in terms of underhanded diplomacy and shady back-room deals often have grave consequences for human rights around the world. It is crucial that international relations with the oil-rich Emirati state operate in an environment of open transparency and full accountability with an adherence to international law at its forefront.

1. For more information, press queries or statements, please contact the ICFUAE Team at joe@icfuae.org.uk or +447979666698  

2. For more information regarding the US travel ban, please see http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-us-travel-ban-sudan-uae-lobbying-united-arab-emirates-president-a7965386.html

3. For more information regarding the UAE violating South Sudan's arms embargo, please see https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/09/uk-amnesty-exposes-illicit-us-46m-south-sudan-arms-deal-brokered-under-governments-nose/ and https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/act30/7115/2017/en/