On the Moroccan Sahara issue, Massad Boulos was clear. Donald Trump is determined to promote a lasting peace based on political realism and regional stability. He praised the vote on UN Security Council Resolution 2797, described as “historic”, recalling that it is the result of a solid strategic partnership between the United States and Morocco. This is a strong message that once again confirms that Rabat remains Washington’s reliable ally in North Africa, while Algiers sinks deeper into ideological hostility and diplomatic stagnation.
But beyond the Moroccan Sahara, Trump’s adviser clearly targeted Algeria, urging it to stop operating as an outdated economic fortress hostile to foreign investment. The United States, he stressed, wants to facilitate access for its companies to the Algerian market and build opportunities for mutual prosperity. An invitation that looks more like a warning than a simple offer of cooperation.
This discourse comes in a harsh international context, marked by the spectacular arrest of Nicolas Maduro by the US army, an operation that primarily benefited American energy interests. A precedent that has not escaped any observer and that increases the pressure on recalcitrant authoritarian regimes, including Algiers in the eyes of Washington.
Algiers’ embarrassing silence and the failure of the obstruction strategy
Significantly, Massad Boulos carefully avoided mentioning the US initiative to normalise relations between Morocco and Algeria, announced a few months earlier by Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy. In October, he had stated that the United States was working on a peace agreement between the two neighbours “within two months”. That deadline has now passed without any concrete progress.
Responsibility for this failure clearly lies with the Algerian regime. Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf had publicly rejected any American mediation, stating that dialogue with Morocco “was not on the agenda”. A declaration aimed more at domestic consumption than diplomatic reality, as Algiers has been multiplying political and economic concessions behind the scenes to the Trump administration since early 2025.
In reality, Algeria did not reject American mediation as it had previously done with those of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or Qatar. It simply bought time, unable to assume a normalisation that would expose the dead end of its hostile doctrine toward Morocco and the chronic instrumentalisation of the Sahara issue.
An Algerian regime obsessed with its own survival
While Algerian diplomacy piles up contradictions, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune appears above all concerned with his own political survival. His project of constitutional revision, intended to allow him to remain in power beyond 2029, illustrates the obsession of a regime cut off from its people and trapped by its internal struggles. The postponement of this issue at the Council of Ministers meeting of 28 December, marked by the notable absence of General Saïd Chengriha, Chief of Staff, says a lot about the fractures at the top of the state.
Facing a Morocco supported by its international partners and engaged in a dynamic of stability and development, the Algerian regime appears more than ever as a factor of regional blockage, locked into outdated rhetoric and unable to adapt to new geopolitical realities.
Translated from Abderrazzak Boussaid’s French article – le7tv