As missile strikes and embassy closures rattled the Gulf during the opening days of Operation Epic Fury, the United States quietly turned to Canada for help evacuating stranded Americans from the United Arab Emirates, Semafor reported on Tuesday.

With U.S. diplomatic facilities shuttered and consular operations disrupted amid Iranian attacks across the region, American diplomats in Abu Dhabi improvised an emergency arrangement with Canadian officials that allowed the Canadian embassy to serve as a pickup point for newly issued and renewed U.S. passports, according to a senior State Department official who spoke to Semafor.

The arrangement came despite tensions between Washington and Ottawa under President Donald Trump, whose administration has imposed tariffs on Canada while the president has repeatedly floated the idea of making the country “the 51st state.”

The State Department official said Canadian diplomats “did not hesitate” when approached for assistance.

“The answer was an immediate yes,” the official told Semafor, speaking on condition of anonymity because details of the arrangement were not public.

The official acknowledged that the State Department was struggling to maintain basic consular services after escalating attacks forced embassy closures across the Gulf.

“We were kind of stuck,” the official said. “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.”

Within days of the start of the Iran conflict, the State Department ordered non-emergency personnel out of the UAE and temporarily closed both the U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi and the U.S. Consulate in Dubai after American facilities became potential targets.

Iranian strikes reportedly hit the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh and damaged a parking area outside the Dubai consulate, while embassies in Bahrain and Kuwait also suspended operations amid security concerns.

With normal diplomatic operations disrupted, U.S. consular officials established a temporary passport distribution point at the Canadian embassy’s check-in counter inside a lobby connected to Abu Dhabi Mall.

Americans awaiting emergency documents were contacted individually and instructed to retrieve their passports there.

According to the report, nearly 1,000 Americans were ultimately evacuated from the UAE aboard State Department-chartered flights, while thousands more departed on commercial airlines.

Others remained in the country as Gulf missile defense systems intercepted most incoming Iranian drones and missiles.

The State Department official acknowledged the confusion and uncertainty many Americans experienced while awaiting documents and evacuation guidance, saying, “It must have been frustrating and maybe a little scary.”