President Donald Trump declared online that he intends to invade one of the United States’ most strategically important allies on the African continent.
“I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action,” Trump raged in an unhinged Truth Social rant Saturday afternoon. “WARNING: THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT BETTER MOVE FAST.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth swiftly jumped into the comments section: “Yes sir.”
The MAGA leader’s outburst does not appear to have been triggered by any particular incident, but it comes only a day after he said he would categorize the West African nation as a “country of particular concern.”
That designation, also extended to China, Cuba and North Korea, is ordinarily reserved for state actors deemed to engage in or otherwise tolerate “particularly severe violations of religious freedom.”
Nigeria is a secular, constitutional democracy with a population split evenly between Muslims and Christians.
Trump’s plans to designate the country, potentially opening the way for sanctions, therefore owe more to the West African state’s perceived inaction on attacks against Christians by Islamic extremist groups in the country’s “Middle Belt” and north central states.
“If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may well go into that now disgraced country, “guns-a-blazing,” to completely wipe out the Islamic terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” the president wrote Saturday.
“If we attack, it will be fast, vicious and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians!” he added.
Nigeria is one of the United States’ most crucial strategic allies in Africa, a continent Trump once described as comprised of “s–thole” countries,” with the U.S. historically providing sizable assistance in terms of economic stability, humanitarian aid, and efforts to combat terrorist activity from Islamic fundamentalist groups like Boko Haram and ISIS-West Africa.
It has no documented cases of the federal government engaging in assaults against adherents of the Christian faith.
Trump has already once designated Nigeria a “country of particular concern” during his first term, a decision that was eventually reversed by the Biden administration in 2021 after it was determined the West African state simply “did not meet” the necessary criteria.
Claims of an ongoing Christian genocide, facilitated by the Nigerian state, have nevertheless long held traction among the U.S. far right. “I have fought for years to counter the slaughter and persecution of Christians in Nigeria,” Texas Senator Ted Cruz posted on X Friday, promising to advance “legislation that implements additional steps” beyond Trump’s designation, “including targeting those who implement blasphemy and sharia laws in Nigeria.”
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu responded that “the characterization of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality.”
“Religious freedom and tolerance have been a core tenet of our collective identity and shall always remain so,” he wrote. “Nigeria opposes religious persecution and does not encourage it.”
