Trump threatens military action, aid cuts over persecution of christians in Nigeria

United States President Donald Trump on Saturday issued a stark warning to the Nigerian government, threatening to send American troops into Nigeria and cut off U.S. aid unless authorities take decisive action to stop what he described as the persecution and killing of Christians.

In a social media post, Trump said that should Nigeria fail to halt the violence, he may order U.S. forces to intervene “guns-a-blazing” to “completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.”

“I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action,” he wrote. “If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians!”

The warning came a day after Trump declared Nigeria a “country of particular concern” for religious freedom — a label Nigeria’s president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, strongly rejected.

Nigeria, home to roughly 220 million people, has a population almost evenly split between Christians and Muslims. Insurgent movements such as Boko Haram have long sought to impose strict Islamic rule, resulting in violence that has targeted both faiths.

Responding to Trump’s earlier comments, Tinubu said on social media that portraying Nigeria as intolerant “does not reflect our national reality.” He added that religious freedom “has been a core tenet of our collective identity and shall always remain so.”

Trump’s remarks followed renewed attention to the issue in Washington. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) this month accused Nigeria’s government of turning a blind eye to a “massacre” of Christians, while the bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom also recommended that the country be designated as a “country of particular concern.”

Cruz has since introduced a bill seeking sanctions on Nigerian officials allegedly “ignoring and even facilitating the mass murder of Christians by Islamist jihadists.”

Trump said in his Friday post announcing Nigeria’s designation that he has asked Reps. Riley Moore (R-W.Va.) and Tom Cole (R-Okla.) to “immediately look into this matter.”

“The United States cannot stand by while such atrocities are happening in Nigeria, and numerous other Countries,” Trump wrote. “We stand ready, willing, and able to save our Great Christian population around the World!”

The latest threats come as the Trump administration continues to expand military operations abroad. In August, U.S. forces began deploying a large naval and air presence in the southern Caribbean, near Venezuela, where they carried out lethal strikes on small vessels suspected of drug smuggling.

Neither the Department of Defense nor the Nigerian Embassy responded to requests for comment.

According to the Associated Press, attacks in Nigeria vary in motive — some driven by religion, others by ethnic or regional tensions. While Christians are among those targeted, analysts told the AP that the majority of victims are Muslims in the country’s northern regions, where most assaults occur.