US President Donald Trump has announced that he will place Nigeria on a religious freedom watch list based on vague claims that Christians in the country are being “massacreed” by Muslims.
In a social media post on Friday, President Trump explained that African countries will be added to the State Department’s list of “countries of special concern.”
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“Christianity faces an existential crisis in Nigeria,” President Trump wrote. “Thousands of Christians are being murdered. Islamic extremists are responsible for this genocide. I hereby place Nigeria as a ‘Country of Special Concern.'”
The Nigerian government has denied such allegations in the past. But critics have warned that designating Nigeria as a “country of special concern” could pave the way for future sanctions.
Mr. Trump also appears to have circumvented normal procedures on such matters.
The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 created the category of “Countries of Particular Concern” to monitor and advocate for an end to religious persecution.
But that label is typically assigned by recommendations from experts at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and the State Department, a bipartisan group established by Congress.
In a post on Friday, Trump said he had asked the House Appropriations Committee and Representatives Riley Moore and Tom Cole to “immediately investigate this matter.” Both are Republicans.
President Trump’s claims appear to echo those of right-wing lawmakers who characterize Nigeria’s difficult and sometimes violent conflict as an incident of attacks on Christians by Islamic extremists.
But experts say this framework is largely inaccurate, explaining that conflicts in the country cannot be explained solely by religious differences.
Nigeria is divided into the Muslim-majority north and Christian-majority south. For more than a decade, the country has suffered violent attacks by the group Boko Haram, which have caused chaos and displacement.
Conflicts over resources such as water have also exacerbated tensions, sometimes leading to violent clashes between predominantly Christian farmers and predominantly Muslim shepherds. But Nigeria denies that the clashes are primarily religiously motivated.
Still, Rep. Moore echoed President Trump’s assessment in a statement after Friday’s announcement.
“I have been calling for this designation ever since I highlighted the plight of Christians in Muslim-majority countries in my first floor speech in April,” Moore said.
He added that he intends to “ensure that Nigeria receives the international attention, pressure and accountability that it urgently needs.”
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a fellow Republican, also praised Trump’s decision. “I am deeply grateful to President Trump for making this decision,” he said in a news release. “I have been fighting for many years against the genocide and persecution of Christians in Nigeria.”
Since returning to office for a second term in January, Trump has sought to strengthen his base among the American Christian right.
At a prayer breakfast in February, he announced that the government would establish a task force to root out anti-Christian bias within the federal government.
Then, in July, the administration released a memo allowing federal employees to preach on the job.
President Trump condemned the allegations of anti-Christian violence in a post Friday, but he has also been criticized in recent days for his administration’s policies toward refugees, people fleeing persecution and violence in their home countries.
On Wednesday, President Trump announced the lowest-ever cap on refugee admissions in the United States, limiting admissions to just 7,500 people for the entire 2026 fiscal year.
In a notice published on the Federal Register website, he explained that most of the slots would be allocated to “Afrikaners primarily of South African origin” and “other victims of unlawful or unjust discrimination”.
Critics were quick to point out that refugee status was granted out of fear of systematic persecution, not discrimination.
Still, Trump continues to escalate diplomatic tensions with South Africa by falsely claiming that white Afrikaners are being subjected to “genocide,” a claim frequently asserted by far-right figures.
