[2] However, in September 2020, the United States suspended part of its economic assistance to Ethiopia due to the lack of sufficient progress in negotiations with Sudan and Egypt over the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

[4] U.S.-Ethiopian relations were established in 1903, after nine days of meetings in Ethiopia between Emperor Menelik II and Robert P. Skinner, an emissary of President Theodore Roosevelt.

[8] Another significant event transpired in January 1944, when President Franklin Roosevelt met personally with Emperor Haile Selassie aboard the USS Quincy (CA-71) in the Great Bitter Lake of Egypt.

Although no matters of substance were resolved, the meeting both strengthened the Emperor's already strong predilection towards the United States, as well as discomforted the British who had been at odds with the Ethiopian government over the disposition of Eritrea and the Ogaden.

Ethiopia was one of the first countries to take part in the American Peace Corps program, which emphasized agriculture, basic education, tourism, health, economic development and teaching English as a foreign language.

After the Ethiopian Revolution, the bilateral relationship began to cool due to the Derg's linking with international communism and U.S. revulsion at the junta's human rights abuses.

The United States rebuffed Ethiopia's request for increased military assistance to intensify its fight against the Eritrean secessionist movement and to repel the Somali invasion.

If the President certified that all political prisoners had been released and an independent media could function without excessive interference, full, normal military aid could resume.

[18] DLA Piper, on behalf of the Ethiopian government, released statements emphasizing the counterterrorism role that the country played in the region, and that the United States relied on.

[20] Instead, Secretary Rice announced that the administration was working with NGOs to improve the humanitarian situation in Ethiopia and that a good relationship with the Ethiopian government was essential for the efficacy of those programs.

[22] Human rights groups have accused the United States of giving Ethiopia's Prime Minister Meles Zenawi "a free rein" to abuse his own people.

In April 2010, Human Rights Watch published a report which accused Zenawi's ruling party Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front of having "total control of local and district administrators to monitor and intimidate individuals at the household level."

[25] In February 2021, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned ethnic cleansing in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia and called for the immediate withdrawal of Eritrean forces and other fighters.

According to White House national security spokesperson John Kirby, the restrictions were lifted due to progress on human rights, particularly after the cessation-of-hostilities agreement.

[29] Barack Obama was the first sitting United States president to speak in front of the African Union in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa, on 29 July 2015.

With his speech, he encouraged the world to increase economic ties via investments and trade with the continent, and lauded the progresses made in education, infrastructure and the economy.

But he also criticized the lack of democracy and leaders who refuse to step off, discrimination against minorities (LGBT people, religious groups and ethnicities) and corruption.

[30][31] In December 2022, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed attended the United States–Africa Leaders Summit 2022 in Washington, D.C., and met with US President Joe Biden.