After several false starts over the past decade, the United States finally lifted sanctions it first levied against Sudan nearly two decades ago. The decision came late last week, after the Trump administration had extended its deadline over the summer on whether to make the Obama administration’s easing of sanctions permanent. The sanctions relief for Sudan was one of former President Barack Obama’s final, surprising foreign policy moves in office.
The U.S. has imposed the financial restrictions since the 1990s in response to the Sudanese regime’s penchant for harboring terrorists and for the atrocities it has committed, including the genocide that government forces and its allied militias carried out against people in Darfur.
The Trump administration determined that Khartoum has finally done enough to earn a reprieve. That includes curbing hostilities both in Darfur and the disputed states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan in the southeastern Nuba Mountains region, where the regime regularly dropped bombs on rebels and civilians alike. The U.S. State Department also cited the efforts by President Omar al-Bashir’s government to improve humanitarian access, to end its meddling in the conflict in neighboring South Sudan, and to assist global counterterrorism efforts. As an additional incentive, Sudan recently cut ties with North Korea.