Trump told UAE leader Saudi Arabia wanted emirates sanctioned: Report

US President Donald Trump told his UAE counterpart, Mohammed bin Zayed, that Saudi Arabia asked him to impose sanctions on the emirates over their support for Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), The New York Times reported on Friday.

The report says that Trump delivered the message to Mohammed bin Zayed in a November phone call, after Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visited the White House.

Middle East Eye was the first to reveal the Saudi crown prince’s plan to lobby Trump against the UAE for its support of the RSF, whose month-long siege of el-Fasher in Darfur was described by a United Nations panel last week as bearing the “hallmarks of genocide”.

Following MEE’s report, Trump stated at a Saudi-US business forum in Washington, “His Majesty would like me to do something very powerful having to do with Sudan,” adding, “We’re going to start working on it.”

Saudi Arabia initially tried to position itself as a mediator to the civil war raging between the RSF and Sudanese army commander Abdul Fattah al-Burhan.

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Sudan sits directly across the Red Sea from Saudi Arabia.

However, as the UAE funnelled support to the RSF, Riyadh has emerged as a backer of the Sudanese army, along with Egypt and Turkey.

Both the RSF and Sudanese army have been accused of war crimes, but the RSF’s attacks, particularly in Darfur, have been defined by rape and mass slaughter.

According to the NYT report, Trump told the Emirati leader "that his friends were out to get him, but that [Trump] had his back”.

Some analysts and regional officials speculate that Saudi Arabia's lobbying was the final straw that inspired the UAE to back a sweeping offensive by secessionist forces in Yemen in December. That move precipitated a sweeping Saudi military offensive in Yemen that evicted the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council from power.

The NYT said that “Saudi leadership” believes the UAE backed the offensive over their belief that the kingdom asked Trump to sanction them.

Letter to UAE

Trump’s apparent taunting of Mohammed bin Zayed is notable following MEE’s exclusive report last week regarding correspondence between the two Gulf states.

Multiple US and western officials told MEE that Mohammed bin Salman sent a "lengthy" letter to UAE national security advisor Tahnoon bin Zayed, complaining about the UAE's activities in Sudan and Yemen.

The letter, which was sent a few weeks ago, provided a detailed list of complaints against the UAE, even as it offered mediation through the crown prince's brother and advisor, Saudi Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman.

The letter also said that Saudi Arabia was shocked that the UAE believed the kingdom had pressed the US to sanction it, in what appears to be an effort to defuse tensions over the sanctions rumours.

Trump has not imposed sanctions on the UAE, although the US did announce new sanctions on RSF commanders last week.

In a memo issued by the US Department of the Treasury last week, the US acknowledged that the brother and close lieutenant of RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo is using an Emirati ID in addition to a Kenyan passport.

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