Libyan oil tycoon Hassan Tatanaki, who has ties to both the Gadhafi family and military strongman Khalifa Hifter, has registered his new political party to lobby the Donald Trump administration to join the push for fresh elections aimed at reunifying the war-torn country.

Tatanaki signed a $30,000 monthly contract last November with Yorktown Solutions, a small Washington-based lobbying shop, according to Justice Department records reviewed by Al-Monitor. The firm is run by Daniel Vajdich, a former Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer and adviser to the 2016 presidential campaign of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who previously lobbied on behalf of Ukrainian interests against the Russian-owned Nord Stream II pipeline to Germany.

Vajdich told Al-Monitor that the businessman’s Libyan United Democratic Party seeks a “free, democratic and prosperous Libya” that is “not subject to the influence of local Muslim Brotherhood affiliates or their external backers.” Tatanaki, whose Challenger Limited oil company operates 25 drilling rigs in Libya, has residences in Abu Dhabi, London and Cairo. He has close relationships with Emirati Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed and other Arab royals.

But experts say the entry of Tatanaki into the Washington lobbying fray will be challenged by the attrition of the State Department’s ranks and waning American interest in Libya, leaving few potential openings for the billionaire to push his message. Despite welcoming UN-backed Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj to the White House in late 2017, Trump, speaking alongside Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni that April, said the US had “no role” in the North African nation.