The US President-elect Donald Trump’s administration might be currently busy aligning foreign policy teams to deal with the wars raging in Ukraine and Gaza and the aftermaths of the regime change in Syria while giving little hint to Africa, traditionally deemed as a low foreign policy priority. Yet, the fast-changing dynamics in this vibrant continent where minerals, oil and other vital resources are the subject of competition among US adversaries, namely China and Russia, are a reminder of the need to change the course and regain strong positions in an emerging continent full of challenges to world peace and security.
The waning relationship between the US and Sahel countries, namely Niger where US forces were ordered to leave the Agadez Base which costed the US more than a hundred million dollars to build added to the hundreds of millions spent on training Niger’s military since 2013 is a further indicator of the urgency to rethink US strategies this region. Mali and Burkina Faso did the same with US and French army battalions, leading to a halt of the US and French counterterrorism operations in the Sahel, and paving the way to a reinforced presence of the Russian mercenary group Wagner to fill the vacuum as the new security partner.
Iran, a permanent headache in the geopolitical equations of the US in the Gulf, has been trying to manipulate the chaotic situation in the Sahel to fill the vacuum left by the ousting of French and US forces from major Sahel countries to strengthen its presence in this region and to implement its anti-western agenda. The exchange of visits between Iranian high-ranking diplomats and senior officials from Mali and Burkina Faso is indicative of Iranian maneuvers to find new vital geopolitical spaces that would allow it to evade US-led sanctions, regain political influence on the world stage and find some ways to reanimate its sluggish economy.
To keep its national security interests intact in the Sahel, it is important for the US to remain engaged in finding sustainable solutions to issues inherent in the chronic security deficit in this volatile region. This requires thinking of alternative means to the hard power approach systematically deployed to face the rising instability in such complex geopolitical context in Africa.
A pragmatic strategy to deal with these new realities on the ground entails clearly involving trustworthy, capable and credible partners with a proven record in delivering viable solutions to Africa’s long-standing glitches, including through targeting security deficits, promoting economic development and proposing win-win collaborative and inclusive frameworks.
Morocco stands out as one of the oldest and most reliable allies of the US in Africa with a proven record as a staunch promoter of its own version of South-South cooperation and a strong supporter of the approach favoring African solutions to African problems, underpinned in the conviction that Africa should trust in its potential to face the multiple challenges impeding its development such as home-grown terrorism, human trafficking, climate change impacts, democracy decline, mismanagement of resources, endemic corruption and recurrent attempts to use violence to provoke political change.
In this regard, the recent talks between Moroccan and US officials on the margins of the UN General Assembly meetings last September stressed the need to advance regional and global peace and to address the root causes of insecurity and instability in the Sahel region and by large in the African continent.
Morocco’s African policy capitalizes on a number of assets including its consistently renovating and entrepreneurial public diplomacy, namely its reinvented religious diplomacy geared towards deepening its ties with its continent of belonging and maintain intact its strategic relations with key partners.
Morocco’s projection of its soft power in Africa has taken different shapes and covered different areas. Besides the economic development endeavors in the continent, Rabat offers thousands of scholarships every year to African students wishing to join Moroccan universities, and provides military and security training to officers coming from a host of African partners, not to ignore the incentives given to the private sector to invest in strategic sectors in Africa mainly in banking, insurance and telecommunication. Such investments and economic ventures have placed Morocco as the second investor on the Continent and the first in West Africa.
The deployment of this soft power sought to promote a moderate version of Islam or let’s call it a progressive religious diplomacy devoted to fighting the rising extremism and radicalization trends with the infiltration into parts of the Continent of subversive radical groups such as Al Qaida, ISIS, Bokou Haram and Al Shabab group, to mention but a few. Such an approach is intended to delegitimize any extremist group or movement instrumentilizing Islam to achieve political goals, to topple down long-established regimes or to further destabilize already volatile and fragile regions, especially in the Sahel and Sahara.
To confront these daunting challenges, Morocco’s deployment of its public diplomacy strategies, namely its economic and religious diplomacies could be perceived as a major component of the proactive approach towards African youth facing growing uncertainties in a continent still confronting serious trials of political instability and economic downturns. The growing migrant flows crossing the sea to reach the European “Eldorado” is telling of how volatile the situation is in the migrants’ sending countries and perspectives that these desperate youth could join radical groups who would presumably provide them with some sort of financial stability and the hope for change. Keeping these youth home and changing their minds about how to lead change requires genuine efforts of capacity building and income-generating strategies that could reestablish their trust in the possibility of having a future within their own communities.
Against the backdrop of these challenges, the Trump administration is strongly encouraged to support Morocco’s multiform diplomacy in Africa imbued with African-solidarity initiatives and pan-African driven projects much relevant and viable in such a complex geoeconomic context in the continent, particularly in the Sahel region.
To give shape to this much needed engagement, the US should lend further support to the Rabat Process of Atlantic African States, launched in 2022, designed primarily to strengthen peace, stability and economic development in the African Atlantic region. As H.M. King Mohammed VI said in his Green March speech in November 2023, the goal of the initiative is “to transform the Atlantic region into a space for human interaction and economic integration, and to make sure it plays a key role at continental and international levels”.
By focusing on building solid partnerships in the Atlantic, the US and Morocco could stimulate the establishment of robust collaborative frameworks that serve both nations’ interests and contribute to larger regional stability and economic development in Africa, offering millions of youth jobs and livelihoods that keep them home and insulate them against the looming threats of being recruited by radical or separatist groups out of despair, unemployment, poverty and the lack of hope for stable, prosperous and evolving societies.
The US should also consider bringing some economic incentives to the initiative launched by Morocco offering landlocked Sahel countries access to the Atlantic Ocean through some facilities like the Port of Dakhla, expected to be fully operational by 2029 and deemed as a major gateway linking the economies of the Sahel countries to North African, European and North Atlantic markets. Such an initiative reflects a visionary approach to mutually fruitful cooperation in the Southern Atlantic space conducive to more resilient economic integration, shared peace, stability and prosperity in the African Atlantic region.
However, the success of the Moroccan Atlantic initiative is contingent on the strong involvement of major Atlantic players namely the US and other key actors with vested interests in the long-term stability, security and prosperity of the Sahel region. Morocco can obviously lead the way by offering its developing infrastructure such as ports, roads and marine lines along with the political leverage developed through the established human, cultural, spiritual and socio-economic bonds consolidated across time with the Sahel countries.
The US should work with Morocco to facilitate accessibility to funding resources and useful synergies imbued in the AU 2063 Agenda, to promote economic integration across the continent and push forward the transatlantic vision seeking the emergence of like-minded and fully engaged allies sharing the same goal of making the Atlantic a viable space for collective security, global peace and shared affluence.
Within this framework, it seems wise to remind that the recognition by the Trump administration back in 2020 of Moroccan sovereignty over the so-called “Western Sahara” territories has been a real game-changer in the regional dynamics in North- Africa. To give shape to this bold decision, the US should multiply constructive practical actions including the opening of a Consulate in Dakhla to liaise with local authorities on issues of maritime connection and infrastructure building to allow close coordination and support for all projects associated with Morocco’s Atlantic initiatives, the Sahel-oriented development plans and the security-focused endeavors tailored to fence off transborder and transnational threats including terrorism, human-trafficking, drogue-dealing, piracy and insurgencies.
Supporting the mega-project of the Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline could be a good piece to the chain of development-based endeavors of strategic importance to the entire African continent, liable to fast-track the process of economic integration to face the energy deficits, which undercut investment-leaned projects in strategic fields such as agriculture, agri-food, pharmaceutics and manufacturing.
Morocco and the US might also find it meaningful to focus more on the civilian aspects of the annual military exercise called the African Lion, in which Morocco plays a key role as a host country. More attention might be given to scaling up the capacities of African participating states in humanitarian disaster management and rescue operations, especially in cases of natural catastrophes resulting from the effects of climate change, the dangerous trafficking of migrants across the Atlantic Ocean, which often lead to tragic losses in human lives or the displaced refugees fleeing tension zones sparked by insurgencies, mutinies or the disruptive maneuvers of separatist mouvements.
In a nutshell, the Trump administration should consider offering full support to Morocco’s multiform African policy premised on the firm conviction that a solid and mutually profitable partnership is required to give a new momentum to the set of collaborative frameworks in place, devoted to establishing a united front against the chaotic and deteriorating security environment in the Sahel region. Bidding on a capable, trustworthy and entrepreneurial partner like Morocco seems to be the right investment to make in the midst of the deteriorating security situation across the continent and the outburst of tensions in the broader and turbulent MENA region.
