One of the targets of the so-called “Muslim ban” signed by President Donald Trump on Jan. 27 was Sudan. Last month, however, the Trump administration removed Sudan from the list and, on Oct. 6, the State Department announced the lifting of an array of sanctions that Washington had imposed on Khartoum since the 1990s. As reported by The Intercept on Sept. 25, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members — specifically the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — have been seeking to persuade Washington that the time is opportune for a US-Sudan rapprochement despite their history of poor relations.

Abu Dhabi and other GCC capitals have sought to convince the United States that Sudan deserves to be included within Washington’s set of Sunni Arab allies/partners that are committed to the responsibilities that Trump called on leaders in the Arab/Muslim world to fulfill in Riyadh in May. The argument has largely rested on the fact that Sudan has recently made contributions to US and some GCC states’ efforts to counter Iran’s expanding and consolidating regional influence.

While it was just several years ago that Sudan and Iran were growing close politically, Khartoum has pivoted away from Tehran and moved within the GCC’s sphere of orbit since 2014-2015. In September 2014, Sudanese authorities shut down Iranian cultural institutions in the country. Since March 2015, Khartoum has deployed thousands of Sudanese forces to the Arab Gulf military coalition in Yemen, and in December of that year, Sudan joined the Saudi-led Islamic Military Alliance to Fight Terrorism. At the beginning of 2016, Sudan severed diplomatic relations with Tehran, officially in response to the Saudi-Iranian standoff following the execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.

To be sure, economic challenges and threats to the survival of President Omar al-Bashir’s regime prompted Sudan’s decision to shift toward the GCC. Having lost the majority of its oil and a third of its territory as a result of South Sudan’s independence in 2011 amid unresolved conflicts in Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile, Khartoum determined that it was most strategically sound to turn to the Arabian Peninsula’s oil-rich states for financial backing. According to an interlocutor in the UAE, officials in Khartoum simply weighed the potential economic benefits of continued ties with Iran versus those of aligning more closely with the GCC. They concluded that abandoning Tehran was worth the financial assistance that the Arab states of the Persian Gulf could provide. Since Khartoum made the pivot, GCC members have provided Sudan with billions in assistance.