The last couple of years have seen no shortage of bloodshed. But while most of the world’s attention has been focused on the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, the most devastating conflict of our time has been unfolding in Sudan. There, a power struggle between two rival military leaders has turned into a catastrophic civil war. It is fast becoming one of the worst humanitarian crises of the modern era and threatens to destabilize an entire region.
Efforts to end the fighting have failed. But in one of fate’s stranger twists, Donald Trump may turn out to be Sudan’s best hope for peace. Let me explain why.
Sudan’s current turmoil traces back to the 2019 revolution that ousted long-time dictator Omar al-Bashir, which led to a fragile power-sharing government between civilians and the military. The uneasy bargain collapsed in 2021 when a military coup commanded by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of the Sudanese Armed Forces, dissolved the transitional government. The coup was supported by the Rapid Support Forces, a powerful Arab paramilitary led by Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (aka Hemedti). The RSF descended from the Janjaweed, the ethnic militias that – along with Sudan’s military – were responsible for the horrific Darfur genocide two decades ago.
Despite starting as allies, Burhan and Hemedti clashed over the RSF’s integration into the army and control of the country’s gold-rich territory. The SAF and the RSF have been at open war since April 2023, with both sides credibly accused of committing atrocities – each sponsored by outside actors looking to advance their own geopolitical and economic interests.
The SAF has been primarily armed by Egypt and Iran, while the RSF gets most of its financial and military support from the United Arab Emirates. Russia initially backed the RSF via the Wagner Group but now arms the SAF. Turkey and Qatar have reportedly been abetting the SAF as well. The conflict is not only a fight between Sudanese for control of the country but also a proxy battleground for regional influence, natural resources like gold and farmland, and strategic Red Sea access, with foreign meddling undermining efforts to achieve a ceasefire, prolonging the civil war, and exacerbating its humanitarian consequences.
The fighting has already killed an estimated 150,000 people, forced over 11 million Sudanese – roughly a quarter of the country's population – to flee their homes (three million of whom have been pushed into neighboring countries), and put 25 million at risk of acute hunger, threatening to create the worst famine since China’s Great Leap Forward.
But Sudan’s civil war isn’t just a humanitarian disaster – it’s a geopolitical powder keg. Sudan’s descent into failed-state status would destabilize the Horn of Africa, create a haven for terrorist groups and rogue states, flood Europe with refugees, and disrupt Red Sea shipping at a time when it’s already under attack by the Houthis in Yemen.
Yet despite the humanitarian and geopolitical stakes, the global response has been pretty much crickets. We are, after all, in a growing G-Zero vacuum of leadership. The United Nations system has little power in a divided world. Europe tends to ignore problems until they reach its shores. Saudi Arabia has positioned itself as a neutral mediator but has had little success.
And where has the world’s policeman, the United States, been? Consumed with the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. Setting up a generational battle with China. Fighting inflation and each other, of course. As for Sudan … well, when’s the last time you heard of a campus protest over the carnage taking place in Western Darfur?
Competing priorities, lack of political pressure, and excess caution help explain why the Biden administration was reluctant to take sides in a conflict with no clear “good guys” and limited leverage to effect change, especially given Washington’s reliance on both Emirati and Egyptian support on Gaza. The US did try to broker ceasefire talks, but the effort collapsed last August after the SAF decided not to show.
It was only two weeks before the end of its term that the Biden administration took the more decisive step of formally accusing the RSF of committing genocide against non-Arab ethnic minorities in western Darfur. The genocide designation was accompanied by sanctions on Hemedti and seven UAE-based companies funding his militia. A few days later, the departing administration also sanctioned SAF chief Burhan, accusing his forces of war crimes including indiscriminate bombing of civilians and using chemical weapons against the RSF. But it was too little, too late to alter the conflict’s trajectory.
Nearly two years in, the fighting is only intensifying. The SAF has recently gained momentum and retaken parts of the capital Khartoum and surrounding areas, while the RSF is making a final push to take the besieged city of El Fasher, the army’s last urban stronghold in Darfur. With both sides convinced they can win militarily and foreign patrons flooding the country with arms, there appears to be no end in sight to the conflict.
Enter Donald Trump. In contrast to Joe Biden, the 47th president of the United States has unique relationships with and leverage over the key regional players fueling Sudan’s conflict, and a transactional style that works particularly well in that part of the world.
Remember the Abraham Accords, the most durable and significant foreign policy accomplishment of Trump’s first term? In his final months in office, Trump got Sudan to normalize relations with Israel in exchange for removing the country from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. It was hallmark Trumpian statecraft: Sudan got sanctions relief, diplomatic recognition, and access to international financing; Trump got another Arab state to recognize the Jewish state.
More importantly, Trump has exceptionally close relationships with the Arab strongmen fueling Sudan’s war. He made the first foreign trip of his first term to Saudi Arabia and will likely do so again this time, and he maintains particularly warm ties with the Saudi and Emirati autocrats. Trump also called Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi his "favorite dictator" and has shielded Cairo from an across-the-board halt to US military aid. His rapport with the key players, coupled with his transactional, non-ideological diplomatic style, positions Trump to succeed where former president Biden failed.
That’s not to say that brokering peace in Sudan would be easy. Trump would need to be willing to use carrots – such as investment incentives or sanctions relief – and sticks – the threat of tariffs, sanctions, and curtailed arms sales and aid flows – to convince Abu Dhabi to halt its support for the RSF, persuade Cairo, Doha, and Ankara to stop backing the SAF, and get two warlords who view compromise as existential surrender to negotiate a power-sharing agreement. Not a cakewalk.
But if anyone could pull it off, it’s Donald Trump. His willingness to wield US power unapologetically — and his indifference to democratic norms — resonate in a region accustomed to strongman politics. The key lies in giving each player something they value more than continued fighting – or threatening something they fear more than walking away from the fight. By offering Sudan’s generals and their patrons credible incentives to de-escalate, Trump could lay the groundwork for a lasting peace.
I know what you're thinking – Sudan’s humanitarian crisis doesn’t rank high on the US president’s “America First” priority list. Why would Trump bother getting involved?
There’s an argument to be made. Sudan’s collapse would directly threaten his Middle East priorities: Regional destabilization could empower Iran, undermine US-allied Gulf states, and create security and terrorism risks Trump campaigned to avoid. Addressing the crisis therefore arguably aligns with his “America First” agenda. Sudan’s implosion would also undermine his landmark Abraham Accords, which his administration is set on expanding further.
But more importantly, success would burnish Trump’s legacy as a peacemaker and advance his broader Middle East agenda. Who knows – perhaps it’d even be enough to earn him that coveted Nobel Peace Prize.
Whether Trump will prioritize Sudan remains uncertain. But in a world starved of leadership, he may be the country’s last hope.