The United States has removed Eritrea’s military, ruling party and several senior political and commercial figures from its sanctions list after allowing the national emergency underpinning its Ethiopia-related sanctions programme to expire.
The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control published the changes on Friday, September 18.
The removals cover the Eritrean Defense Force and the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice, Eritrea’s governing and sole legal political party.
OFAC also delisted the Red Sea Trading Corporation and Hidri Trust, organisations connected to the ruling party’s financial and commercial network.
Two individuals were removed: Hagos Ghebrehiwet, a senior economic official associated with the PFDJ, and Abraha Kassa, an Eritrean security official. Multiple versions of their names appeared in Treasury’s notice because the sanctions database recorded aliases and alternative spellings.
The action followed the expiration of the national emergency declared through Executive Order 14046 on September 17, 2021.
That order created the legal foundation for sanctions against people and organisations determined by the United States to have contributed to the humanitarian and human-rights crisis in northern Ethiopia, obstructed a ceasefire or undermined efforts to resolve the conflict.
OFAC said the emergency had expired and that people designated under the order whose property had been blocked were consequently removed from its Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List.
The legal sequence matters.
Treasury did not publish a new factual finding declaring that the conduct cited in 2021 had not occurred. Nor did its notice say that the delisted entities had met a negotiated set of human-rights or accountability conditions.
The immediate, confirmed explanation is that the underlying national emergency expired.
The practical effect is nevertheless significant.
Placement on the SDN list generally blocks property subject to US jurisdiction and prohibits most transactions involving American people or institutions. Banks and international companies also frequently avoid sanctioned entities because of compliance and reputational risks.
Removing the Eritrean entities therefore eliminates those particular restrictions under the expired Ethiopia programme and may make international financial and commercial activity easier.
It does not necessarily remove every legal, banking or compliance restriction that might apply under other authorities. Companies must still determine whether a transaction involves separately sanctioned people, export controls or other regulations.
The Biden administration imposed the measures in November 2021 during the Tigray war.
Eritrean forces entered northern Ethiopia in support of Ethiopian federal troops fighting forces loyal to the Tigray regional government.
At the time, the US accused Eritrean actors of contributing to violence, instability and a severe humanitarian emergency. It said the military and ruling party had participated in activities contributing to the crisis or obstructing a ceasefire and peace process.
The sanctions also targeted the ruling party’s economic network.
US authorities described Red Sea Trading Corporation as an organisation managing commercial and financial interests connected to the PFDJ. Hidri Trust was similarly identified as part of that network.
Hagos Ghebrehiwet was sanctioned over alleged material or financial support for the governing party, while Abraha Kassa was listed as a senior security figure.
The war formally ended with the Pretoria peace agreement between Ethiopia’s federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front in November 2022.
Eritrea was not a signatory to that agreement.
The conflict killed tens of thousands of people by conservative estimates, displaced large populations and generated allegations of massacres, sexual violence, looting, starvation-related abuses and obstruction of humanitarian assistance.
Eritrean authorities have repeatedly rejected accusations against their forces and criticised the sanctions as unjustified.
Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel welcomed the US decision in comments to the Associated Press. He said the measures had been unwarranted and had caused considerable harm, describing their removal as a remedial action by the Trump administration.
That response represents Eritrea’s official position.
The delisting itself does not determine legal responsibility for individual wartime crimes or resolve competing accounts of Eritrean forces’ conduct.
No comprehensive international accountability process covering every party to the Tigray conflict has been completed. Victims’ organisations and human-rights advocates continue to seek investigations and remedies.
The decision also arrives during heightened strategic concern about the Red Sea.
Eritrea has an extensive coastline and controls the ports of Massawa and Assab. Assab lies close to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the narrow passage linking the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and global shipping routes beyond it.
Conflict involving Yemen’s Houthi movement has increased threats to vessels and placed greater strategic value on states bordering the waterway.
That context may increase Washington’s interest in improving relations with Eritrea or preventing rival powers from expanding their influence along the coast.
However, neither OFAC’s notice nor the Associated Press report establishes that a Red Sea bargain caused the sanctions to expire.
Any conclusion that the United States exchanged sanctions relief for military access, port rights or another security concession would be speculative without further evidence.
The Trump administration has not published a detailed policy statement explaining whether the expiration reflects a broader diplomatic rapprochement with Asmara.
It is also unclear whether Washington sought commitments on regional security, prisoners, political rights, military activity in Ethiopia or relations with Red Sea partners before allowing the emergency to lapse.
The absence of a continuation notice is itself consequential.
National emergencies used to support sanctions are normally continued periodically when an administration determines that the relevant threat remains sufficiently serious. Allowing this emergency to expire ended the legal basis for the related designations.
That makes the development broader than a discretionary removal of one individual.
It closes the sanctions programme associated with Executive Order 14046 and removes the Eritrean targets designated under it.
The change could affect Eritrean state-linked trade, overseas banking relationships and the movement of funds. The real commercial impact will depend on how quickly financial institutions update their screening systems and reassess risk.
Banks may continue exercising caution because delisting does not compel a private institution to process transactions.
The political meaning will also depend on what follows.
A reopening of diplomatic engagement, new investment, security cooperation or access to international finance would indicate a wider shift in US–Eritrea relations.
Conversely, if the administration issues no additional policy and relations remain limited, the action may prove primarily to be the legal consequence of an expiring emergency.
For accurate publication, the removal should not be described as proof that Washington has cleared Eritrea of every wartime allegation.
The verified development is more specific: the US legal emergency expired, OFAC ended the associated blocking designations, and Eritrea’s military, ruling party, two officials and two connected organisations are no longer on the SDN list under that authority.
