Outgoing President Donald Trump’s Dec. 11 proclamation that the United States would recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara marked yet another low for his administration. In an unrelated deal to facilitate the exchange of diplomatic relations between Israel and Morocco, Trump’s decision to throw the Sahrawi people under the bus ditches three decades of U.S. support for their self-determination via a referendum of the Sahrawi people on the territory’s future status.
Republican Sen. James Inhofe was exactly right when he said in a Senate floor speech on Dec. 10 that Trump “could have made this deal without trading away the rights of this voiceless people.” Inhofe is one of the few U.S. experts on Western Sahara, built up through years of service on both the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the Committee on Armed Services, which he now chairs. I have worked frequently with Inhofe on the Western Sahara issue over the years, dating back to my own initial involvement as assistant secretary of state for international organizations during the George H.W. Bush administration.
