This ought to seize the president’s attention. Not just because Mali’s collapse would send shockwaves across the Sahel and beyond, destabilizing an already volatile region and creating new sanctuaries for terrorist groups. But also because a main culprit for this disaster is someone whom Trump loves to invoke with contempt: French President Emmanuel Macron.
U.S. President Donald Trump has a habit of exaggerating threats where they barely exist while ignoring genuine catastrophes unfolding in plain sight. His recent claims that Christians are existentially threatened in Nigeria are wildly overblown—the reality in Africa’s most populous nation is complex, with violence afflicting Muslims and Christians alike. But while Trump fixates on a phantom problem, a very real calamity is reaching its crescendo in Mali, where al Qaeda-affiliated militants are strangling the capital as the country teeters on the brink of becoming the first nation governed by Osama
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