How the UAE is Enveloping Africa Through Ports

 In recent years, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has drawn significant attention with its rapidly expanding economic, diplomatic, and military presence in Africa. While projecting an image as a modern, progressive, and investment-friendly Arab nation, this Gulf state’s activities reveal deeper contradictions. From supporting the Rapid Support Forces—the perpetrators of genocide in Sudan—thereby destabilizing the region and illegally exporting gold from the chaos, the UAE has built its influence on profound inconsistencies. This marks a fundamental shift in Emirati foreign policy toward the continent.

Following its independence in 1971, the UAE’s relations with Africa, initially based on religious and geographic proximity, evolved into a purely strategic and interest-driven approach as the economic clout of Abu Dhabi and Dubai grew. Despite formal sovereignty, the UAE’s ruling elite long acted as a pro-Western proxy. Its current role in Sudan’s chaos is a clear and ruthless continuation of this tradition.

In pursuit of Sudan's gold reserves and strategic dominance over the Red Sea, the UAE supplies weapons to Hemedti's paramilitary forces and facilitates the illicit extraction of gold (notably for the Kremlin). Simultaneously, it coordinates its interests across the continent, primarily in Sudan, with Israel.

The UAE’s economic footprint in Africa is not only vast but expanding at an extraordinary pace. Its investment commitments to the continent reached $97 billion over the past two years—three times China’s commitments—indicating that this presence goes beyond conventional “development aid” rhetoric. Such capital flows feed into permanent spheres of influence, particularly those established through ports and logistics hubs.

Control of Ports: The UAE’s New-Age Imperial Strategy

Although active in numerous sectors across Africa, the UAE’s defining move—setting it apart from other global and regional players—is its architecture of power built through ports. Alongside economic investments and proxy wars via armed groups, the Emirates constructs its most enduring influence through maritime gateways.

A key priority for the UAE is securing the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and establishing a permanent stake in Red Sea trade traffic, placing it in competition with Turkey, Iran, and Qatar in the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea. By investing in Egyptian ports, it maintains good relations with Cairo, ensuring ease of movement through the Suez Canal. In Libya, it counters Turkey by supporting Khalifa Haftar. 

Aware that "who controls the routes controls the world," the UAE aims not just to influence trade but to shape regional politics by embedding itself in the continent’s most strategic ports and logistics centers. Given Africa's projected exponential rise in global trade over the coming decades, this is a highly deliberate, long-term geopolitical move.

This structure is managed by the AD Ports Group (linked to Abu Dhabi Developmental Holding) and DP World (owned by the Dubai government). Both operate less as commercial companies and more as "state apparatuses with a non-state appearance." They operate over 10 ports along the continent's coastline, establish inland logistics corridors, and command unseen lines of the global supply chain through more than 70 hub points. Inland, they build "dry ports"—logistics centers integrating multiple transport modes.

When DP World or AD Ports begins operating a port, it typically brings its own computer systems, customs procedures, and security protocols. This vast network transcends commerce, representing an imperial control mechanism; these ports can double as military lines for ammunition shipments, training, and operations. As a complementary element, the UAE has established military bases in Eritrea, Somaliland, and Somalia, practically implementing the port-security-logistics triangle on the ground.

Who Controls the Ports, Controls the Power

Control of sea routes has historically determined not just trade, but the fate of global influence. The Suez Canal is a prime example: its 1869 opening strengthened British global hegemony, while Gamal Abdel Nasser's 1956 nationalization symbolized the end of Anglo-French dominance and the rise of Arab nationalism.

A more recent and instructive case is China’s 99-year lease of Sri Lanka’s Hambantota Port in 2017 after Colombo could not repay its debts. This concrete manifestation of "debt-trap diplomacy" fundamentally altered Indo-Pacific balances.

Which power controls a nation's ports is a determining factor in its geopolitical compass. The UAE's aggressive moves for African ports are shaped precisely by this awareness of competition.

Turkey’s construction of the TURKSOM military base in Somalia and operation of the Mogadishu port is countered by DP World’s deal with the breakaway Somaliland region for the Berbera Port, where it holds a 51% controlling stake. A 3-kilometer-long military runway and a full-fledged military base were also part of this agreement, with Somaliland holding 30% and Ethiopia's 19% stake turning the deal into a regional power equation.

Recent steps by Israel toward recognizing Somaliland have elevated the port’s geopolitical significance. The potential legitimization of the unrecognized Somaliland by Israel transforms Berbera into not just a commercial but a military and strategic linchpin. The UAE’s existing military infrastructure in the region solidifies the Israel-UAE partnership at Africa’s Red Sea gateway.

The 2004 contract for the Doraleh Container Terminal in Djibouti, granting a 50-year concession, was the UAE's first major port move in Africa. However, Djibouti’s unilateral termination of the deal in 2018, citing DP World’s failure to deliver promised economic benefits, triggered a major diplomatic crisis.

Since 2015, the UAE has transformed the Assab Port in Eritrea, which it leases, into a military logistics hub for the war in Yemen.

A 2023 port agreement with Tanzania also progressed in DP World’s favor, continuing despite nationwide protests and parliamentary debates.

Often starting with infrastructure investment and credit pledges, the UAE structures these deals to secure de facto control of the ports. While reminiscent of China’s debt-and-control model, it operates with greater speed, flexibility, and lower visibility, carving out a unique sphere of influence in Africa. Today, the UAE is considered China's only real competitor in East and West Africa.

The Dark Side of the Logistics Network

This colossal logistics network doesn't just move containers; it functions as a shadow corridor, laundering gold and valuable minerals smuggled from conflict zones into global markets under a guise of "legitimate trade."

The UAE channels gold extracted from Sudan via the Russian Wagner network and critical minerals like coltan and cobalt from armed groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo via Rwanda into the system. Using its own ports and logistics lines, it moves these illicitly extracted minerals out of the continent and into Western markets.

The power controlling a country's main port can influence not just trade but also imports, exports, customs revenue, and even food security. Port dominance is thus an extraordinary tool for political pressure. Accordingly, the UAE institutionalizes this pressure by following port projects with arms exports, defense industry deals, and military training agreements.

Quiet Partnership with Global Powers

The UAE presents its port agreements with a "development partner" narrative, attempting to distinguish itself from classic colonial actors. Its image as a Muslim nation, source of Arab capital, and Gulf power underpins this story. However, the critical reality is that the UAE is not an independent actor.

As defined by Brazilian thinker Ruy Mauro Marini, the Emirates exhibit a classic sub-imperialist structure: economically and militarily dependent on central imperial powers yet capable of establishing influence and exploitation relations within its own regional periphery. While maintaining close ties with BRICS members Russia and China, it also assumes a role aligned with Washington's interests in securing the vital Red Sea–Aden corridor.

The UAE's expansion of its port and logistics network along this sea lane, crucial to the US, is supported by a quiet, if unstated, approval. Precisely for this reason, the UAE is not merely an investor for Africa; it is an invisible yet highly aggressive power center capable of simultaneously controlling trade, sea lanes, and security.

The dominance established through ports shapes trade today and holds the potential to transform tomorrow into a permanent relationship of dependency that could narrow the political maneuverability of African nations.

 

Sources:

https://www.akem.org.tr/post/bae-nin-afrika-politikas%C4%B1

https://www.tni.org/en/article/the-emerging-sub-imperial-role-of-the-united-arab-emirates-in-africa

https://www.theafricareport.com/346561/uae-dp-world-makes-a-play-for-africa/

https://www.newarab.com/analysis/blood-and-business-israel-uae-nexus-fuelling-sudans-war

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/dr-congos-gold-smuggled-to-uae-african-countries-un-/1875644

https://hornreview.org/2025/11/06/foreign-military-presence-and-eritreas-calculus-in-the-red-sea/

This article was orginially published on wajtürk.com.