Yinka Adegoke and Mathias Hammer,Semafor
The Islamic Republic of Mauritania is set to take a step toward resuming ties with the state of Israel at a White House meeting brokered by US President Donald Trump later Wednesday, according to a person familiar with the plans.
Mauritania President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of a mini US-Africa summit featuring four other western African countries: Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, and Senegal. Mauritania, which is a member of the Arab League, severed ties with Israel in 2010 in response to the first Gaza war.
The Trump administration has indicated it is committed to normalizing relations and expanding economic partnerships with Israel across the continent.
There are still nine African countries who have either never recognized Israeli statehood (Algeria, Comoros, Djibouti, Libya, Somalia, and Tunisia) or suspended bilateral relations (Mali, Mauritania, and Niger).
Spokespeople for the White House, State Department, and the Mauritanian embassy in Washington did not respond to queries from Semafor ahead of publication.
Wednesday’s meeting between Trump and the five African leaders has been framed as the latest step in a broad move to focus US-African relations on commercial opportunities and trade rather than aid.
The leaders of Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania, and Senegal represent countries that are “not obvious priorities” for Washington, one analyst noted, but will allow the administration to reward Gabon and Senegal for recent peaceful transitions of power and discuss tackling migration and illicit drugs with the presidents of Guinea-Bissau and Mauritania.
A US official told Semafor the leader-level lunch reflected these countries’ desire to discuss investment opportunities for American businesses.
But Washington’s push to crack down on immigration from Africa and its high tariff barriers risk complicating Trump’s deal-making agenda, the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Cameron Hudson argued.
Trump has made no secret of his ambitions to win the Nobel Peace Prize and has stepped up efforts to push for peace agreements in the Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Gaza conflicts, and, more recently, mediating between DR Congo and Rwanda.
While there are still some doubts over whether all sides in the complicated and deadly three-decade long unrest in eastern Africa will stick to the Trump-brokered pact, the worst of the fighting seems to have abated since last month’s Washington announcement.
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