WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he would start “working” to end the war in Sudan at the request of the Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman.
“His majesty would like me to do something very powerful having to do with Sudan. It was not on my charts to be involved in, I thought it was just something that was crazy and out of control,” Trump said at a Saudi-US business forum.
“But I just see how important that is to you, and to a lot of your friends in the room, Sudan. And we’re going to start working on Sudan.”
“I view [Sudan] differently now than I did just a day ago,” Trump said.
His pledge to start working on the conflict shows his close relationship with the Saudi leader, whom he hosted at the White House on Tuesday.
Washington has urged the warring parties to finalise a truce, while Trump’s own Africa envoy, Massad Boulos, on Saturday told AFP the war in Sudan was “the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis.”
However, Trump himself has hardly commented on it, focusing instead on the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
Since breaking out in April 2023, the war between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced nearly 12 million, and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
President Trump, in his remarks, said that he and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “have made the US–Saudi alliance stronger than it has ever been.”
Trump praised the Crown Prince as “a bold leader” committed to strengthening ties, adding that the United States would provide Saudi Arabia with advanced military systems as part of the expanding partnership.
President Donald Trump has also announced the elevation of US–Saudi relations, declaring the Kingdom a major non-NATO US ally as Washington and Riyadh move to consolidate their long-standing strategic partnership.
Washington and Riyadh are prepared to finalize $270 billion in investment agreements spanning defense, energy and artificial intelligence.
