Donald Trump redefined the fight against terrorism and drug trafficking in the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas.
Rejecting any complacency toward Islamist armed groups and their regional backers, he waged a direct war against the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda, and Hamas in the Middle East, and extended this strategy to the Sahel, where he targeted jihadist networks allegedly supported by Algiers, particularly through the militias of the Polisario Front.
In the Middle East, Donald Trump pursued a pragmatic policy of alignment with Israel against Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist terrorist organization.
By recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital (December 2017) and initiating the Abraham Accords, he consolidated a strategic alliance among Israel, several Arab states, and the United States.
This approach isolated Hamas by reducing its diplomatic and financial backing, while placing its regional patrons, Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, under direct pressure.
Unlike his predecessors, Donald Trump placed growing importance on the African continent in his security policy, targeting Al-Shabab in Somalia, Boko Haram in Nigeria, and Islamic State affiliated groups in the Sahel.
These interventions aimed to prevent the emergence of a second jihadist front that could threaten American and European interests in West Africa.
However, it was in North Africa that Donald Trump introduced a major diplomatic shift.
His administration openly questioned the role of the Polisario Front, an armed militia active and supported by Algeria’s military regime under General Saïd Chengriha.
Behind the scenes in Washington, the Polisario was no longer viewed as a mere independence movement, but as an organization operating in an area increasingly infiltrated by Sahelian terrorist groups and drug traffickers connected to cartels in Venezuela.
Reports from the Pentagon and independent analysts have repeatedly highlighted the porous links between Polisario camps in Tindouf and armed networks operating in northern Mali and southern Algeria.
For Israel and Western analysts, Algeria is seen as an ambiguous actor, supporting both the Polisario and terrorist groups in the Sahel and the Middle East, in coordination with Iran’s clerical regime.
For many observers, Donald Trump remains the only U.S. president who has led a truly global and coherent war against terrorism, from the Middle East to the far reaches of the Sahel.