Australia and the World Past and Present

On Christmas day the Trump administration announced that it had struck militants linked to Islamic State in northwest Nigeria.

For some time now, Trump has said that he has been concerned about violence against Christians in that country.

In Nigeria, roughly half the population is Christian and half is Muslim.

Christians are concentrated in the south while Muslims are concentrated in the north.

In recent times, Christians in the north have been attacked by groups such as Boko Haram, an Islamist group that advocates an extreme form of Islamic law. Boko Haram can be translated to mean “Western education is forbidden” or “Western influence is sinful.” In 2012, the group told Christians in the north to leave the region.

In November, Nigeria was designated a “country of particular concern” under the U.S. International Religious Freedom Act.

The Nigerian government authorised the latest U.S. strike.

Donald Trump claims that he is a President who doesn’t start wars – that he is focused on ending them. It took some time for the Israel/Palestine conflict to simmer down during his latest term. The Russia/Ukraine war continues. Trump’s approach to this conflict has seesawed back and forth. Initially, Trump seemed strangely enamored with Putin. Against the wishes of his own intelligence organisations, he seemed to want give Putin the benefit of the doubt. He famously gave the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy a dressing down in the Oval Office. Zelenskyy changed his approach, thanked Trump for his support and indicated he was willing to negotiate an end the conflict. It seems that Trump has reengaged. Some have speculated that his desire to win a Nobel Peace Prize is behind efforts to secure a lasting peace deal. The problem is, the Israel-Palestine conflict has shown itself to be stubbornly difficult to resolve – for generations. Likewise, the Russia/Ukraine War is not easy to resolve. Trump has to deal with one of the world’s great powers – Russia. It seems that Putin is willing to play the long game. He knows that the U.S. can’t force him to stop fighting. He also knows that Russia is much larger and powerful than Ukraine. He thinks that he can ride out any short-term pressures. So he talks about being interested in peace and negotiations, but they may be just a stalling tactic.

Trump claims that he doesn’t like to get into foreign military adventures. The recent strike in Nigeria makes such a claim harder to sustain. Still, he could argue that he didn’t start this conflict, that it already existed and that he was merely standing up for persecuted Christians.

In many ways Africa seems peripheral to U.S. interests. It is not America’s backyard.

But defending Christians from persecution overseas seems to play well among Trump’s base, particularly among evangelical Christians.

The other consideration is oil.

Nigeria is Africa’s largest exporter of crude oil. Behind Nigeria is Libya, Angola, Algeria and Egypt. Nigeria has sizable proven crude oil reserves.

On the face of it, Trump’s interest in Christians in Nigeria seems a little hard to pin down.

The only other time he gave Africa much attention was when he focused on the murders of white farmers in South Africa.

Talking about defending persecuted Christians in Nigeria seems to be popular among his supporters. But Trump doesn’t spend much time talking about Christians in other parts of the world. Of all the oil the U.S. receives from Africa, more than half comes from Nigeria. Trump may think that eliminating Boko Haram, or at least disrupting its activities in the north of Nigeria may stabilise the oil production there.

In short, Trumps interest in talking about Christians in Nigeria may be partly about shoring up and energising his base, combating Islamic extremism, and stabilising Nigerian oil production.