The new US sanctions on Sudan’s Armed Forces (SAF), which took effect this month, mark a decisive escalation in Washington’s attempt to enforce the global taboo on chemical weapons—and they place uncomfortable pressure on the SAF’s supporter, Saudi Arabia. Far from being a technocratic adjustment, this second‑stage sanctions package crystallizes a clash between international legal obligation and the regional interests of Saudi Arabia along the Red Sea and the Nile Valley.
At the heart of the measures lies a legal clock that began ticking in April 2025, when the United States formally determined under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act (CBW Act) that the SAF had used chemical weapons in 2024. That determination, grounded in investigations pointing to the use of chlorine barrel bombs north of Khartoum, triggered an initial set of penalties—restrictions on US exports, suspension of most foreign assistance, and a ban on arms sales and foreign military financing. Crucially, the CBW Act does not stop there: It demands a second round of sanctions if, within three months, the offending state fails to cease chemical weapons use, allow inspections, and provide credible assurances of non‑recurrence.
Washington’s judgment, formalized in late June, was that Sudan had not met those conditions. The Federal Register notice making the new sanctions effective on 20 July 2026 translated that conclusion into concrete costs for the SAF‑aligned authorities: US representatives are now required to oppose loans and financial or technical assistance to Sudan from international financial institutions; export controls have been tightened further; and Sudanese state‑owned airlines are barred from US airspace. In practice, Sudan’s military government faces deepening isolation from Western finance and aviation, at a time when the war has already shredded its economy and displaced millions.
Politically, this second‑stage regime locks in a narrative that goes beyond “ordinary” wartime atrocity. The SAF is cast not just as a brutal belligerent but as a military establishment that has crossed one of the firmest red lines in international humanitarian law. Human‑rights advocates and African regional bodies have echoed media investigations suggesting that aerially delivered chlorine was used in at least two attacks near the al‑Jaili refinery, where yellow smoke caused severe respiratory distress among combatants and civilians alike. The US determination reflects that line of analysis. Unsurprisingly, Khartoum has denied the charge.
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Yet the real strategic tension lies not only in Khartoum but also in Riyadh. On the face of it, Saudi Arabia has presented itself through the Jeddah platform as a mediator in Sudan’s war. Yet the Saudi regime has in real terms allied itself firmly with the SAF, an increasingly uncomfortable position, given the accelerating US sanctions against General Burhan’s forces. US sanctions announced in parallel with the CBW process have begun to complicate that calculus. American designations target “networks fueling Sudan’s war,” including procurement and recruitment operations that supply weapons, explosives, and foreign fighters to the SAF. This sends a pointed signal to commercial and logistical actors in the Kingdom: any channel that sustains the military machine of a government found to have used chemical weapons will attract growing scrutiny and potential secondary sanctions. As the 20 July measures formally fix the SAF’s status as a chemical-weapons violator in US law, Saudi Arabia faces an awkward question: can it maintain support for the army while advertising itself as a responsible mediator, or will that dual role become increasingly untenable?
It is clear that the 20 July 2026 sanctions expose the fault line between the normative and the geopolitical. For the United States, once the CBW Act is triggered, failing to proceed to second‑stage measures would mean hollowing out the very mechanism designed to uphold the Chemical Weapons Convention. For Riyadh, however, the SAF are not an abstract violator in a legal textbook; they are the concrete instrument through which the Kingdom—showing little apparent regard for international conventions that govern the conduct of war—seeks to manage its security on the Red Sea.
Whether this latest wave of sanctions can meaningfully change SAF behavior will depend less on Washington’s legal resolve than on how Saudi Arabia responds. If they recalibrate their support—tightening the flow of money, materiel, and political cover—the cost of chemical‑weapons use may begin to bite in Khartoum’s strategic calculations. But if they treat the CBW measures as a purely American affair and continue business as usual, the measures themselves are reduced to symbolism with limited practical leverage: the norm may be reinforced in law, but the realities of Sudan’s war are left untouched. Saudi Arabia will have to decide just how far they can diverge from the United States and how safely.
