In 2001, Al Sharpton paid a visit to Sudan, where he met with black Christians who had been held as slaves by Muslim Arabs. Most of these slaves had been captured during raids on their villages in which the male population was slaughtered and women and children sold into servitude. Sharpton, notorious for aggravating racial tensions in the U.S. and provoking two murderous outbreaks of anti-Jewish violence in New York City, pledged to take up their cause and for a brief time spoke about it publicly. But he soon abandoned the issue, as Charles Jacobs explains:

In the event that Joe Biden wins the upcoming presidential elections, there is a good chance that the U.S. will revert to the Obama-era policy of realignment with Iran, and to distancing itself from traditional Middle Eastern allies like Saudi Arabia. Richard Goldberg argues that Riyadh, along with the United Arab Emirates, can buy itself some security by establishing official relations with Jerusalem: