Under President Donald Trump the United States has reset relations with west Africa's military leaders on a mutual back-scratching basis, bartering help fighting jihadists for the Sahel region's mining riches, experts say.

While Joe Biden was in office the US suspended most of the development and military aid it sent to Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger in the wake of the rash of coups that brought juntas to power in the three restive countries between 2020 and 2023.

Trump's return to the White House has shifted the US away from that stance, as part of a wider pivot in Washington's African foreign policy and its attempts to counter Russia and China's influence on the continent.

"Trade, not aid... is now truly our policy for Africa," Troy Fitrell, the State Department's top official for Afric

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