It may have taken a few months for Donald Trump to make the ongoing Islamist violence against Christians in Nigeria a focus of American policy, but the president is making up for any lost time. He began raising the issue with reporters last week, pushed in large part by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who has been demanding action for years.
Nigeria initially responded by welcoming US assistance, while claimimg that the violence wasn’t as severe as reports made out. That apparently didn’t impress Trump, who then warned Nigeria that either they need to stop the Islamist massacres or the US military would intervene directly to protect Christians:
BREAKING: President Trump vows to put an end to the ongoing massacre of Christians in Nigeria.
“They’re killing record numbers of Christians in Nigeria.”
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) November 3, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday said he’s ordered the Pentagon to begin planning for potential military action in Nigeria as he stepped up his allegations that the government is failing to rein in the persecution of Christians in the West African country.
The president also warned that he “will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria.” …
Trump on Friday said “Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria” and “radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter.”
Trump’s comment came weeks after U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz urged Congress to designate Africa’s most populous country as a violator of religious freedom with claims of “Christian mass murder.”
HIs message on Saturday afternoon made the threat explicit. He announced that he had ordered the Department of War to draw up plans for military intervention for his approval, and that the Nigerian government had better “act fast” if they wanted to avoid it:
If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians! WARNING: THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT BETTER MOVE FAST!
His Truth Social feed hasn’t mentioned anything since about Nigeria. Most of Trump’s postings on the platform relates to endorsements of Republicans in Congress, Virginia, New Jersey, and another all-caps demand to get rid of the filibuster in the Schumer Shutdown. Presumably, though, Defense (War) Secretary Pete Hegseth has the Pentagon working to provide Trump with options for interventions that will slow down Boko Haram and other Islamist groups, even if they can’t stop them entirely.
The Nigerian government again welcomed US assistance, but not an American intervention:
Nigeria said on Sunday it would welcome U.S. help in fighting Islamist insurgents as long as its territorial integrity is respected, responding to threats of military action by President Donald Trump over what he said was the ill treatment of Christians in the West African country. …
“We welcome U.S. assistance as long as it recognises our territorial integrity,” Daniel Bwala, an adviser to Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, told Reuters.
The Tinubu government insists that the violence is more political than religious, and that the Islamists are massacring Muslims as well. That’s hardly an endorsement for Tinubu’s handling of the conflict, which has now stretched for more than 15 years and has become more acute in the past couple of years. US and Western pressure has forced Tinubu to make some changes to his administration, Reuters notes:
Nigeria said it would welcome US help in fighting Islamist insurgents as long as its territorial integrity is respected, responding to threats of military action by Donald Trump over what he said was the ill-treatment of Christians in Nigeria https://t.co/5cirlDQEv7 pic.twitter.com/p04PAWK5eG
— Reuters (@Reuters) November 2, 2025
Tinubu, a Muslim from southern Nigeria who is married to a Christian pastor, on Saturday pushed back against accusations of religious intolerance and defended his country’s efforts to protect religious freedom.
When making key government and military appointments, Tinubu, like his predecessors, has sought to strike a balance to make sure that Muslims and Christians are represented equally. Last week, Tinubu changed the country’s military leadership and appointed a Christian as the new defence chief.
“It’s not helpful to narrow this conflict down to religion,” one official said. The conflict is being driven by radical Islamists, so it’s not particularly helpful to claim it’s not a religious conflict either. Nigerian officials have a better point in noting that the Islamists are crossing borders to conduct these attacks and that the US could focus on strengthening Nigerian defenses, but Tinubu hasn’t done much to prioritize that as a strategy for himself … until now, anyway.
Trump wants an end to these Islamist terror networks, and is not afraid to use American power as leverage to force action. He’s also loath to put American boots on the ground for foreign interventions, which in this case could quickly become an escalating quagmire unless overwhelming force and good intelligence crushed the threat immediately. Trump would likely prefer Tinubu to take care of business directly, but he’s also making clear that further violence will force us to act — and Tinubu won’t like the outcome.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.
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