Maghreb: U.S. visit comes amid growing pressure on Algeria

On Monday, April 27, 2026, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau began a five-day visit to North Africa. This was announced on Friday, April 24, by the State Department in a statement, specifying that the two countries involved in this trip are Algeria and Morocco.

Reading the text gives the impression of a predominantly bilateral visit. On the Algerian side, the focus is on "shared efforts to address regional security issues and impactful commercial deals with U.S. companies," two areas where Algiers has indeed been seeking to position itself with Washington for some time.

In Morocco, security is also highlighted – "the longstanding security cooperation relationship" is explicitly mentioned. The statement also refers to "the advancement of technological and space coordination," without providing further details at this stage.

Of course, these elements are in line with the ongoing relations between the United States and the two Maghreb countries. However, it is also difficult to ignore the regional context, dominated by the issue of resolving the dispute over the Moroccan Sahara, more than fifty years after it began.

In this regard, the United States plays, as is well known, a central role. It was indeed the U.S. that drove the current dynamic by recognizing Morocco’s sovereignty over its Southern provinces as early as December 2020. They also more recently took the initiative, as penholder on Resolution 2797, the first to formally establish the primacy of the Moroccan autonomy plan as the basis for negotiations to end this territorial dispute.

At the same time, Washington is participating, alongside the United Nations, in relaunching the political process involving Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania and the Polisario separatist movement, whose initial round was also held in the U.S. capital.

Taking all this into account, the Sahara issue appears difficult to separate from Christopher Landau’s tour. This is all the more so as it coincides with ongoing discussions at the United Nations on the implementation of Resolution 2797 and the future of MINURSO, a UN mission that the Donald Trump administration has already announced it intends to wind down through the U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN, Mike Waltz.

In this context, the increasingly evident isolation of Algeria’s position is likely to be further accentuated, as a diplomatic framework takes shape to which Algiers has yet to rally — and may only do so reluctantly.