After decades of frozen relations with the United States, Sudan is
poised to come in from the cold. Following the October 2017 relaxation
of longstanding sanctions, Sudan appears eager to continue US
engagement. However, since October, momentum for next steps toward
improving the bilateral relationship has slowed.
The US-Sudan
relationship is imperfect, and there are many enduring obstacles to full
normalization—including Sudan’s need for greater political freedoms,
economic reforms, and genuine peace in areas of the country long beset
by conflict. Though daunting challenges remain, the best chance to
achieve further progress is more and deeper US engagement, not less.
Further delay on the next phase of US-Sudan relations jeopardizes the
best US opportunity in nearly three decades to influence positive change
in Sudan. Moreover, it risks giving Sudan’s hardliners an excuse to
walk away from the United States and into the arms of US strategic
rivals
Russia,
China, or
Turkey.
On March 8, in an effort to reaffirm the importance of a timely second phase of engagement, the Atlantic Council’s
Sudan Task Force released three issue briefs
offering specific recommendations to the administration of US President
Donald J. Trump on future relations with Sudan. The briefs focus on
three critical and related topics:
political reform and governance;
economic reform; and
opportunities for cultural engagement.
Sudan’s Significance
The Trump administration’s first year in office has focused on
international hotspots like Iran, Syria, and North Korea while
simultaneously weathering an increasingly turbulent domestic atmosphere.
Amid such high-profile competing priorities, there is a danger that
engagement with Sudan will be left on the backburner.
While the
United States and Sudan have had a long and rocky history, US interest
in and engagement with Sudan and its people dates back to the country’s
independence. The United States helped end the devastating on-again,
off-again civil war between the north and south by negotiating the 2005
Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which paved the way for the secession of
southern Sudan (now South Sudan) in 2011. Additionally, high-level US
attention to humanitarian and conflict issues, including during the
genocide in Darfur and throughout the conflict in the two areas of South
Kordofan and Blue Nile states, is well-known.
Additionally,
Sudan’s strategic significance for US policy on Africa, the Middle East,
and counter-terrorism cannot be overstated, and the country’s unique
geographic positioning puts it at the nexus between the Arab and African
worlds. With deep political, economic, and social connections to the
Middle East, Sudanese troops are
deployed to assist the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen. Sudan also has influence in East Africa, where
tensions with Egypt and Ethiopia over the Nile River, the ongoing
Gulf crisis,
civil war in South Sudan, and chaos in Somalia form a noxious recipe
for instability. Sudan is thus poised to impact—positively or
negatively—the volatile region.
Additionally, Sudan maintains
access to the Red Sea by way of its long coastline and transit hub at
Port Sudan. It is also a key partner in
US counterterrorism efforts to address the
threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham
(ISIS). Further, Sudan shares a two-hundred-plus mile border with
restive Libya and nearly eight hundred miles of border with Egypt, two
countries with which the United States maintains serious national
security concerns.
Recent History In
January 2017, the administration of former US President Barack Obama
lifted comprehensive economic sanctions on Sudan for six months until
the new Trump administration could make its own, final determination.
The initial January decision followed more than six months of quiet
talks with the Sudanese government, a vital trust-building exercise in a
bilateral relationship previously characterized by mistrust and
disappointment. In the negotiations, deemed “Phase I,” the United States
pressured Sudan to make positive changes on five items that ranged from
increasing humanitarian access to Sudan’s conflict areas to ceasing
negative interference in South Sudan. When the Obama administration
determined that Sudan had
delivered on all five items, many sanctions were lifted.
The Trump administration built on this momentum when, after three months of delay, it
permanently lifted sanctions
in October 2017. While the removal of most economic sanctions against
Sudan was a victory for many in Sudan, a number of serious legal and
reputational obstacles to full normalization remain—including the
State Sponsor of Terrorism designation,
which affects Sudan’s access to the global banking system and is the
precondition for other desired incentives such as debt relief.
What’s Next?
Many in Washington agree on the necessity of a next phase of relations,
but few agree on what it should contain. To this end, the
recently-released Sudan Task Force reports offer recommendations to the
Trump administration on the content of a second phase of engagement.
The reports recommend that the United States dispatch a
Senate-confirmed ambassador
to Sudan as quickly as possible; the last accredited ambassador to
Sudan left in 1997. At the same time, it recommends that Sudan undertake
a series of
political and
economic
reforms, including creating a more enabling environment for political
participation, strengthening protections of minority rights, adhering to
United Nations (UN) sanctions on North Korea, and eliminating economic
distortions.
Striking a balance in the new roadmap will not be
easy. The perception that the United States requires too little from the
Sudanese before offering a series of incentives will upset vocal
US-based advocacy groups with strong ties in Congress. At the same time,
the Sudanese have their own domestic constituency to appease. If they
appear to give away too much in return for too little, hardliners inside
the Sudanese government may rebel and shun further US engagement
altogether.
In Sudan’s decades of isolation from the United
States, the country deepened its partnerships with other countries,
including Russia, China, and Turkey. Phase I of US engagement succeeded
in bringing the Sudanese back to the negotiating table and building
confidence on both sides after nearly three decades in the dark. There
is much more to do to improve relations in a way that supports US
interests and creates positive change for the people of Sudan. The time
to build on that momentum is now.
