7/10/2025–|Last update: 05:20 (Mecca time)
On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump hosted the leaders of 5 West African countries rich in minerals, as part of Washington’s efforts to deepen trade relations with the continent, as Trump promised the leaders of these countries to shift from providing aid to promoting trade.
The heads of Liberia, Senegal, Mauritania, Guinea -Bissau and Gabon were invited to this meeting, which officially focused on trade, investment and security issues, according to US officials.
During his meeting with them at the White House, Trump stressed that he sees “tremendous economic potential in Africa”, where the leaders of African countries praised the resources of their natural countries, and they praised the American President, and thanked him for helping them settle the long -term conflict between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Trump described the countries represented at the meeting as “vibrant places, they have very valuable soil, great minerals, huge oil reserves, and wonderful peoples,” a clear shift from his first state, when he used an obscene expression to describe African countries.
During the lunch with African leaders at the White House, Trump expressed his desire to visit Africa, and he said in response to a question from an African journalist: “We will see how the agenda will be, but at some point I would like it strongly,” without specifying the countries that he may visit.
Since his return to the White House, Trump has shown a tendency to deals -based diplomacy, and from this standpoint he put the issue of minerals at the heart of negotiations with many countries, as is the case with Ukraine or within the framework of the peace agreement between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The five countries whose leaders have met with Trump are a small part of the trade between the United States and Africa, but they have unused natural resources, and they are rich in minerals such as gold or rare minerals, and they are vital components of the global economy and especially for the electronic devices and electric vehicles.
Trump also took advantage of the meeting to urge the leaders to help his administration reduce visa excesses by African immigrants. He said that he wanted to work with countries on the “third safe country” agreements, which his assistants described as deals whereby the governments of migrants who do not have the nationality of those countries are received.
Despite the optimistic tone of the president, a memorandum of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued last month that the US administration is considering expanding the ban on travel to include 4 of the five representatives of the meeting, with the exception of Guinea -Bissau.
African praise in Trump
During the round of preliminary discussions, every African leader used a tone full of praise for Trump, praising what they described as his efforts for peace all over the world, and each of them tried to distinguish on each other by listing the unexploited natural resources owned by their countries.
For his part, Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Sheikh Al -Ghazwani said that Mauritania is a small country and has problems regarding development indicators, but it is “a great country with its strategic location and its huge resources of various minerals.”
“We have minerals, rare minerals. We have manganese, and we have uranium, and we have good reasons for the belief that we have lithium and other minerals.”
For his part, the Senegalese President Pasero Diwimi Fayy sought to “reassure all American investors about political stability” in his country and “its favorable organizational environment”, before highlighting its rich resources of oil and natural gas.
Senegal and Mauritania are two important states in terms of immigration, and they face, as well as Guinea -Bissau, challenges in combating drug trafficking, two issues that cause the Trump administration concern.
The open part of the press from the lunch meeting did not address the repercussions of the wide cuts in comprehensive American aid, which critics say will lead to millions of deaths.
Trump’s dismantling of the US Agency for International Development has left African countries in confusion. For example, American aid to Liberia constituted 2.6% of the country’s total national income before reducing it, the highest rate of any country in the world according to the World Development Center.