Six Democratic U.S. senators led by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen have urged the Trump administration to press for an immediate return to mediation in Ethiopia.
The call came in a September 28, 2026 joint statement issued by Senator Cory Booker, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health Policy, together with Senators Jeanne Shaheen, Chris Coons, Jeff Merkley, Chris Van Hollen, and Tim Kaine.
The senators said they were alarmed by what they described as a deteriorating security situation in Ethiopia and warned that escalating conflict in different parts of the country was threatening the agreement that ended the two-year Tigray war.
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They called on the international community to push signatories to the agreement to de-escalate tensions and return to mediation, warning of the risk of another conflict in the Horn of Africa.
The senators further criticized the Trump administration for allowing sanctions on individuals and entities—who they said had facilitated gross human rights abuses in Tigray—to expire less than a week before the latest resumption of hostilities.
The sanctions referred to by the senators expired on September 18, 2026, after the national emergency established under Executive Order 14046 in September 2021 came to an end. The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control subsequently removed persons designated under the Ethiopia-related sanctions program from its Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons list.
The senators argued that allowing the sanctions to expire could embolden belligerents and leave victims without what they described as much-needed justice.
The statement also alleged that a truck transporting U.S.-funded food assistance for internally displaced people in northwestern Tigray was hit last week in a drone strike by the Ethiopian military.
Additionally, they raised concern over what they described as the Ethiopian military’s expansive use of drones in Amhara and Oromia, saying it could worsen the humanitarian situation and widen the conflict.
Their statement accused the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) of failing to live up to its commitments by undermining the Interim Regional Administration, displacing officials appointed by the administration, refusing disarmament, and forcibly conscripting civilians.
“The stakes are too high to risk another conflict in an already volatile Horn of Africa,” the senators said.
