Why Trump's Sahel strategy is likely to fail: Responsible Statecraft
3 Min Read
Alex Thurston's analysis contends that Trump’s renewed engagement with Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger prioritizes US strategic and economic interests, especially minerals, over genuinely addressing the Sahel's deep-rooted insecurity.
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A mural reading "Stay vigilant and mobilized" is seen in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, March 1, 2023. (AP Photo, File)
An analysis published on the Responsible Statecraft website by Alex Thurston argues that the Trump administration's renewed push to engage with Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger is less about solving the Sahel's insecurity and more about advancing American strategic and economic interests.
The White House has moved to expand intelligence sharing and military cooperation with the three administrations, presenting the deal as a pragmatic exchange of minerals for security. But as Thurston explains, this reflects the same old logic that has long guided Western missions in Africa, lofty rhetoric about counterterrorism masking extractive ambitions.
For decades, France and the US claimed their presence was necessary to fight extremist violence, yet under their watch, the insurgencies spread deeper into Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. "All of the Sahel's would-be external security providers offer more or less the same hollow promise, namely, each external partner promises that it has the most sophisticated recipe for killing jihadists. All have failed," he writes.
Transactional security politics
The Sahelian military administrations rose to power precisely because of this failure. Their sovereigntist message, expelling French troops, asserting greater control over resources, and rejecting Western lectures about governance, resonated with citizens tired of being treated as pawns in an endless "War on Terror."
The US strategy under Trump strips away even the pretense of humanitarian concern. Unlike Biden or Obama, who dressed up interventions with talk of democracy and development, Trump officials are candidly transactional: minerals in exchange for security deals, access for influence.
Yet Thurston warns that this approach "ill-fits the sovereigntist mood in the region," where leaders and populations alike are demanding tighter control over extraction. Multinationals such as Barrick are already facing pushback from Malian authorities determined to renegotiate the terms of resource exploitation.
False security
Ultimately, Thurston cautions that Washington is falling back into a familiar trap: believing that military aid and intelligence can reshape the Sahel while ignoring the region's deep social, political, and economic realities.
The real beneficiaries may be US Africa Command and Washington's national security bureaucracy, not ordinary Sahelians.
For citizens of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, the lesson of past decades is clear: Western promises of security are rarely about protecting Africans but about protecting Western interests.
Read more: Washington backs Mali’s Junta to fight extremists: WashPo
