President Donald Trump has become “coup curious” when it comes to the military-led governments of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. Since Trump’s return to the White House in January, the National Security Council and State Department have resumed high-level diplomatic engagements that had been suspended under Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, while encouraging U.S. energy and mining companies to explore new contracts and ramping up intelligence-sharing with the region’s juntas.
It is not just the executive branch. A bipartisan congressional delegation of members of the House Armed Services Committee visited Burkina Faso over the summer, indicating an openness on the part of at least some lawmakers to cooperate with countries that “share our interests,” as Rep. Austin Scott, one of the members of the delegation, put it. Yet by late October, the U.S. Embassy in Mali had ordered non-emergency personnel and their families to evacuate due to escalating insecurity, including a jihadist fuel blockade that poses an existential threat to the current junta led by Col. Assimi Goita.
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Lesley Anne Warner, PhD: Insight | Strategy | Impact 
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