The war in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has raged on for more than two years, leaving the country entrenched in one of the world’s most acute humanitarian crises. The conflict has been marked by extensive harm to civilians. Flows of weapons into the country have sustained the conflict along with illicit trade in gold, the common food ingredient gum arabic, and other commodities.
Earlier this month, over congressional opposition, President Donald Trump pushed through major arms sales to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) ahead of his visit there. Some lawmakers have opposed arms sales to the UAEs because extensive evidence indicates that it has provided weapons to the RSF, which has been implicated in a pattern of atrocity crimes. Now, legislators in both chambers have introduced joint resolutions of disapproval to block the sales, teeing up a floor vote in the coming weeks. Lawmakers have an opportunity to use U.S. leverage to pressure the UAE to stop fueling devastating harm to Sudanese civilians – they should take it.
UAE Arming the RSF
Arms transfers to non-state actors in Darfur – one of the regions where RSF, a non-state paramilitary group, is most active – have been prohibited for more than 20 years. In 2004, amid atrocities carried out by Janjaweed militias that have since evolved into the RSF, the United Nations Security Council imposed an arms embargo on all non-government entities or individuals operating in the Sudanese states of North Darfur, South Darfur and West Darfur. The Security Council expanded the scope of the embargo in 2005 and strengthened it further in 2010. Undertaken under the Council’s authorities granted under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, the embargo is legally binding for UN member states. The Security Council most recently extended the embargo in September 2024, and it is set to expire in September 2025.
Human rights organizations and journalists have documented extensive violations of international humanitarian law carried out by the RSF. In January 2024, a UN panel of experts found that the RSF’s offensive in West Darfur included systematic violations of international humanitarian law and targeted the Masalit, echoing Janjaweed atrocities committed against the non-Arab ethnic group from 2003 to 2005. Human Rights Watch concluded in May 2024 that RSF attacks on Masalit civilians amounted to ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. In January 2025, the U.S. State Department concluded that members of the RSF and allied militias had committed genocide in Sudan. Human Rights Watch reporting found that the RSF has “killed, injured, and unlawfully detained scores of civilians and raped women and girls” during attacks and committed widespread war crimes and crimes against humanity. Amnesty International reported that the RSF has “inflicted widespread sexual violence on women and girls throughout Sudan’s two-year civil war.” (This analysis leaves aside the conduct of other parties to the conflict due to the focus of the resolutions.)
A steady drumbeat of independent investigations indicate that the UAE has supplied the RSF with weapons. Starting in January 2024, the UN panel tasked with monitoring compliance with the Darfur arms embargo wrote that it had identified an RSF supply route running from the Abu Dhabi International Airport to eastern Chad before entering western Sudan. A September 2024 New York Times investigation concluded that the UAE was secretly “expanding its covert campaign to back a winner in Sudan, funneling money, weapons and, now, powerful drones.” In November 2024, an Amnesty International investigation identified that the RSF used Emirati-made armored personnel carriers containing French technology.
In January 2025, the U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned seven Emirati companies involved in providing the RSF with weapons and financial support. In April, France 24 reported that Bulgarian mortar rounds exported to the UAE were recovered in an RSF supply convoy. In May, Amnesty International published a report concluding that Chinese GB50A guided bombs and 155mm AH-4 howitzers used by the RSF were “almost certainly re-exported to Sudan by the UAE.” The Emirati government has consistently rejected these allegations.
Congress’s Response
In response to the war in Sudan, and the RSF’s conduct in particular, members of Congress have collaborated to block major arms sales to the United Arab Emirates. The UAE has been a significant purchaser of U.S. arms in recent years. The last major arms sale to the UAE, put forward in 2024, covered $1.2 billion in Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems and Army Tactical Missile Systems. Other sales in recent years have included airborne surveillance equipment, drones, air-to-air missiles, and air-to-ground munitions. As of January 2025, the United States “has $29.3 billion in active government-to-government sales cases with the UAE under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) system.”
Under the Arms Export Control Act, proposed major arms sales must be notified to the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee before they can proceed. Outside of the Arms Export Control Act, Congress and the executive branch have developed an informal process that allows for the chair or ranking member of either committee to place a hold on a proposed sale ahead of an informal notification, allowing time to address concerns.
Representative Gregory Meeks used his authority as ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to place a standing hold on any major arms sales that the Trump administration proposed for the UAE. However, the Trump administration overrode Meeks’ hold in a departure from well-established oversight norms, pushing through a sale of Chinook helicopters and related equipment worth $1.3 billion, various forms of support for the UAE’s fleet of AH-64 Apache, UH-60 Black Hawk, and CH-47 Chinook helicopters worth $150 million, and a sustainment package for F-16 aircraft worth $130 million. Meeks said, “This decision violates years of established practice and undermines Congress’s constitutional role in overseeing arms transfers.” This marks the administration’s second override of the year, following Secretary Rubio ignoring a hold that Meeks placed for a sale of 1,000-pound bombs and bulldozers to Israel in February.
In response to the Trump administration’s latest sales, groups of legislators in the Senate and House introduced joint resolutions of disapproval in an attempt to block the sales. In the Senate, Chris Van Hollen, Chris Murphy, Brian Schatz, Tim Kaine, and Bernie Sanders are leading the effort, drawing attention to both the UAE’s support to the RSF. Van Hollen said, “We must… use our leverage to prevent more suffering in Sudan – and bring its civil war to a peaceful resolution.” Representatives Sara Jacobs and Meeks are leading a companion effort in the House. (A parallel rationale for the Senate resolutions deals with corruption concerns around a cryptocurrency investment agreement between an Emirati firm and a Trump family-linked company, which is outside the scope of this piece.)
The introduction of the resolutions follows months of engagement from lawmakers. Van Hollen, working alongside Jacobs, first introduced a joint resolution in November 2024 in response to a proposed sale of Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems and tactical ballistic missiles. The lawmakers sought a commitment from the UAE that it would cease arming the RSF. A senior Biden administration official communicated to Van Hollen and Jacobs that the UAE had provided assurances to that effect in the latter days of the Biden administration. However, the legislators assessed in January 2025 “based on a Biden Administration briefing” that the UAE continued to provide support to the RSF.
What Comes Next
The Arms Export Control Act provides privileged procedures for joint resolutions of disapproval to block a notified arms sale. Any member of the Senate may force a vote on such a measure 10 days after introduction, while resolutions introduced in the House do not have access to privileged procedures. To date, no joint resolution of disapproval under the Arms Export Control Act has been enacted into law because the resolutions are subject to presidential veto and Congress has not had the supermajorities needed in the House and Senate to successfully override a veto. Nevertheless, votes on joint resolutions of disapproval can command significant public attention and spark meaningful public debate on U.S. arms sales decisions.
Meeks’ hold and the joint resolutions of disapproval complement draft legislation introduced to further address weapons flows to the warring parties in Sudan. Akin to the joint resolution disapproval, Van Hollen and Jacobs have introduced a bill to prohibit U.S. arms sales to the UAE until it stops providing support to the RSF.
Meeks and Jacobs have also introduced the U.S. Engagement in Sudanese Peace Act, a comprehensive bill that includes arms transfer restrictions for any country identified as providing materiel, resources, or equipment to parties to the conflict. Another provision of the law requires the Secretary of State to provide a report assessing whether weapons from the United States have been used by the warring parties in Sudan. A separate reporting mandate would require the U.S. government to assess whether any government has restricted the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance in Sudan, which would render any such government ineligible to receive U.S. security assistance under Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act.
Separately, Senators Cory Booker and Mike Rounds have introduced a nonbinding resolution calling for the enforcement of the Security Council’s Darfur arms embargo and its extension to all of Sudan. The resolution calls on the U.S. government to press partners and multilateral bodies “to exert pressure on external actors to adhere to the arms embargo in Sudan.”
The coming vote on one or more joint resolutions of disapproval provides an immediate opportunity to spotlight a devastating war that has suffered from neglect among both policymakers and the public. With few Senate floor votes on Sudan to date, predicting a likely vote count is difficult. But even a vote below the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto would show the Emirati government that continuing to arm the RSF will damage the UAE’s reputation in Washington.
Beyond that short-term platform, the resolutions should also invigorate long-term legislative efforts to make clear that the United States should not provide weapons to any government fueling harm to civilians in Sudan. It also fits in with a broader message, promoted in recent years by Van Hollen and Sanders, that the U.S. government should not sell weapons to any country that violates U.S. or international law.
As the war rages on in Sudan and civilians bear the consequences, these measures may help use U.S. leverage to stem the flow of arms to the devastating conflict.
