Trump Signals Reset: US–Eritrea Relations Enter a New Phase

President Donald Trump’s letter to President Isaias Afwerki confirms Washington’s intent to reverse years of hostility and pursue constructive ties across the Horn of Africa.

The careful, principled patience of Eritrea’s foreign policy appears to be bearing its first fruit. In a letter dated July 30, 2025, U.S. President Donald J. Trump reached out to President Isaias Afwerki, pledging to reverse the “negative, harmful damage of the Biden Administration around the globe” and signaling a readiness to re-establish a respectful and productive national relationship with Eritrea.

The message is more than symbolic. Coming just months after President Isaias’ warm congratulatory letter in November 2024—celebrating Trump’s “historic comeback” and expressing hopes for a “new chapter of fruitful and constructive ties”—it marks the first explicit commitment by Washington to engage Eritrea on terms of honesty, respect, and mutual opportunity.

President Trump’s note, as shared today by the Eritrean Minister of Information on X, also links U.S.–Eritrea dialogue to broader regional stability, mentioning the shared goal of improving “peace and prosperity across the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea.”

This development closely mirrors the strategic themes outlined in our feature US–Eritrea Relations: Between Hope and Sabotage. President Isaias had already underlined that Eritrea’s approach to Washington is not one of pleading or dependency, but of principled engagement, urging the U.S. to abandon its history of destabilizing policies in the region.

While a single letter does not erase decades of mistrust and lost years President Isaias referenced in his July interview, it reaffirms Eritrea’s disciplined strategy:

• Wait without weakness.
• Engage without subservience.
• Pursue stability without sacrificing sovereignty.

If followed through, this outreach could signal the first substantive opening in US–Eritrea relations in over 10 decades—an opening defined not by aid or coercion, but by mutual respect and regional vision.

For Eritrea, this is not a pivot. It is the continuation of a path charted long ago, one that resists the tides of disinformation and foreign interference, and one that now, at last, meets an echo from across the Atlantic.