The Scoop
In the early days of Operation Epic Fury, as Gulf states absorbed hundreds of Iranian drones and missiles, the US faced a crisis helping its citizens evacuate from the region. Improvising, American diplomats in Abu Dhabi phoned a friend: Canada.
No formal agreement exists between the US and Canada to cooperate on consular services, so a plan was hastily arranged for the Canadian embassy to serve as a pickup point for handing out new and renewed US passports so citizens could evacuate. That US foreign service members turned to their Canadian counterparts is surprising, given the two countries’ strained relationship under the Trump administration, which has levied tariffs while the president has repeatedly called for making the longtime ally “the 51st state.”
But the Canadian embassy “did not hesitate. The answer was an immediate yes,” a senior State Department official told Semafor, asking not to be named because the information isn’t public.
“We were kind of stuck,” the official added. “We had all these passports arriving by FedEx from the print facility in the United States” but “we didn’t have a location to give them out.”
The Canadian embassy in the UAE and Canada’s government media office did not respond to a request for comment.
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Within days of the start of the Iran war, the US State Department ordered non-emergency staff out of the UAE and closed both the Abu Dhabi embassy and the Dubai consulate as its facilities across the region became targets. Iran struck the US Embassy in Riyadh and hit a parking lot outside the Dubai consulate. The Bahrain and Kuwait embassies, facing similar threats, also closed.
In the UAE, US consular staff set up at the Canadian embassy’s check-in counter in a lobby attached to Abu Dhabi Mall. Americans were contacted individually to pick up their passport there.
One entrepreneur who has lived in the UAE for several years, and who had sent her passport for renewal ahead of the conflict, heard nothing for weeks — a hotline set up for citizens abroad seemingly unstaffed — before an email arrived on March 17 directing her to the Abu Dhabi Mall. When she arrived, a dozen families were already waiting. Passports sat inside a Tupperware container organized alphabetically.
Kelsey’s view
The ad hoc arrangement with Canada underscores just how unprepared the US State Department was for dealing with the ripple effects set off by Operation Epic Fury. The official I spoke to acknowledged “it must have been frustrating and maybe a little scary” for some, waiting for their passports and for more clarity from their government.
Close to 1,000 Americans were ultimately placed on State Department charter flights out of the UAE (onboard wifi password on one: Freedom1776), and thousands more left on commercial airlines. Still more chose to stay put in the UAE as missile defense systems intercepted the vast majority of projectiles.
A few Canadian expats I’ve spoken to about this bureaucratic episode responded with mock incredulity: “You want to make us the 51st state!” one said.
To be sure, the US has long relied on allies for consular services. Switzerland, for example, has represented the US in Iran since 1980, handling passport applications and citizen support under an agreement. What Canada did in Abu Dhabi is not new, even if it was impromptu.
Notable
- Some Asian migrant workers were offered repatriation flights back to home countries when the war began. But many turned them down with their livelihoods tied to the Gulf, the BBC reported.