Posted on Sunday, November 2, 2025
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by David P. Deavel
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0 Comments
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This week, President Donald Trump has shown yet again that he will work to protect Christians not only in the United States but around the globe. On Friday, he designated Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) over the long-ignored slaughter of Christians taking place there. On Saturday, he announced on social media that he is willing to both cut off aid to Nigeria and possibly even use military force to help protect beleaguered believers in that country.
Christians in Nigeria have been suffering increasing levels of persecution at the hands of their Islamist countrymen over the last two decades. A 2023 report by Intersociety found that more than 50,000 Christians have been murdered since 2009—and the persecution has only escalated since then.
Despite that reality, in 2023, the Biden administration removed the Country of Particular Concern (CPC) status that had been attached to Nigeria by the Trump administration in 2020. The 1998 International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) requires the president to give CPC status to countries in which “particularly severe violations of religious freedom” are either allowed or perpetrated by a government.
Many political figures in the U.S., including Senators Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Pete Ricketts, urged the Trump administration to reattach the designation in September. On October 15, an ecumenical coalition of Christian leaders and activists sent Trump a letter urging him to do more than simply put Nigeria on the Special Watch List since this designation does not trigger mandatory sanctions.
The letter noted that the number of Christians killed since 2009 is now over 52,000, with more than 20,000 churches destroyed and 100 pastors abducted. It also noted that the terror, conducted by Islamic groups, affects Muslims themselves.
Trump announced he would again designate Nigeria as a CPC on October 31, saying that “Christianity is facing an existential threat” and asking Representatives Riley Moore (R-WV) and Tom Cole (R-OK), who is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, “to immediately look into this matter and report back to me.”
The Nigerian government refuted the accusations that an anti-Christian terror campaign is being waged in their country. Nigerian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Kimiebi Ebienfa said the Trump announcement did “not reflect the situation on the ground” since, despite religious differences, Nigerians “have long lived, worked, and worshipped together peacefully.”
Nigerian Senator Shehu Sani added that “the designation of Nigeria is founded on outright falsehoods and wholesale misinformation. Terrorists and bandits in Nigeria kill and kidnap their victims irrespective of their religious beliefs.” While it may be true that not all terrorism is religiously motivated, that doesn’t mean that most of the persecution isn’t directed at Christians over their faith.
Many others who recognize this reality greeted Trump’s designation joyfully, including the bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and the international religious liberty organization Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).
Perhaps most surprising is that rap star Nicki Minaj also celebrated the decision, writing on social media that the President’s announcement elicited in her “a deep sense of gratitude.” She added: “Numerous countries all around the world are being affected by this horror [and] it’s dangerous to pretend we don’t notice. Thank you to the president [and] his team for taking this seriously. God bless every persecuted Christian. Let’s remember to lift them up in prayer.”
On Saturday, November 1, Trump went further, threatening the Nigerian government with both sanctions and possible military action if the nation does not stop the slaughter of innocent Christians:
“If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities. I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians! WARNING: THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT BETTER MOVE FAST!”
This willingness to act and act quickly is a solid move for Trump, who is popular with many Nigerian Christians already. Will he really send in troops? It’s a good bet that, while the President is ready to do so, he really doesn’t want to. Trump proved during his first term that he is only willing to use deadly force as a last resort – and only in a way that endangers as few American lives as possible.
What Trump does want to do is change Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, for the better. Given his prioritizing of this issue within the first year of his second term, there’s a good chance that he will succeed.
As Sean Nelson of ADF commented on X, while Trump did designate Nigeria a CPC in his first term, it was not until 2020, making it easy for the Biden team to downplay the status and eventually remove it.
“This one’s happening at the beginning of Trump’s term. Nearly 4 years to turn this around,” Nelson wrote. He added that if we’ve learned anything about President Trump in his second term, “it’s that in foreign policy, when he acts, he means it. So, I think there’s a real shot of success here. We can change the course of the persecution of Christians. In Nigeria and elsewhere. We really have a chance.”
David P. Deavel teaches at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. A past Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute, he is a Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative. Follow him on X (Twitter) @davidpdeavel.
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