Sometime last week, senior State Department official Mollie Phee and General Michael Langley, commander of U.S. Africa Command, flew to the Nigerien capital of Niamey for a meeting with the military-led government there. U.S.–Niger relations were in the doldrums since July, when the Nigerien military arrested the president, suspended the constitution, and took over the state. The session was ostensibly meant to see whether those ties could be restored for the benefit of both countries.
The meeting didn’t go well. Days after the U.S. delegation left, the junta’s spokesman announced that the previous security deals Niger inked with the United States were null and void. While the Nigeriens didn’t order the roughly 650 U.S. troops to leave the country, they called the U.S. military presence there “illegal,” which suggests that it may be only a matter of time before President Biden orders all Americans to depart. The Biden administration would like to avoid this; on Monday, March 18, the Pentagon and State Department insisted that U.S. officials were working their diplomatic magic to get a better understanding of how Niger’s latest announcement means will impact America’s force presence in this poor, arid country in Africa’s Sahel region.
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