Boulos Returns to Western Sahara: Is Washington Leaning on Algeria or Morocco?

The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump continues its diplomatic efforts to influence issues in the Maghreb and Africa, including the ongoing dispute over Western Sahara between Morocco and the separatist Polisario Front.

In this context, U.S. Presidential Adviser for African and Middle Eastern Affairs, Massad Boulos, visited Algeria on January 26, 2026, to discuss key regional issues and developments in the Western Sahara conflict.

Morocco proposes broad autonomy for the territory under its sovereignty, while the Polisario Front calls for a referendum on self-determination, a position supported by Algeria, which hosts refugees from the region.

On October 31, 2025, the United Nations Security Council voted in favor of a U.S.-backed resolution supporting Rabat’s autonomy initiative for Western Sahara.

Second Visit

The U.S. Embassy in Algeria announced that this is Boulos’s second visit since his appointment following Donald Trump’s reelection, emphasizing that the trip is part of efforts to strengthen the bilateral partnership and promote joint work for peace and prosperity in the region.

The Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on January 27 that Boulos was received by Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf, holding a private meeting followed by an expanded session between delegations from both countries.

The ministry said the meeting provided an opportunity to review various aspects of Algerian-U.S. relations and to discuss ways to strengthen them and elevate them to the highest possible level.

“The two sides also exchanged views on key current issues in the Arab world and Africa, notably developments in Libya, the Sahel and the Sahara, as well as Western Sahara,” the ministry added. 

On the same day, the Algerian presidency announced that President Abdelmadjid Tebboune received the U.S. presidential adviser.

The Trump administration has expressed its desire to resolve the Western Sahara dispute, affirming its recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the territory and its support for Morocco’s autonomy proposal.

In contrast, the Polisario Front continues to demand the right to self-determination, receiving political, financial, and military backing from Algeria, which also hosts Sahrawi refugee camps in the Tindouf region in southern Algeria.

These developments come in the context of implementing United Nations Security Council Resolution 2797, issued in October 2025, which reaffirmed the priority of reaching a realistic, practical, and lasting political solution based on consensus regarding the Western Sahara conflict.

The resolution called on all parties to engage in the political process in good faith under UN auspices, emphasized the central role of the UN Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy in facilitating negotiations, and highlighted the importance of involving all relevant parties, including neighboring states, reflecting the regional nature of the dispute.

The upcoming round of negotiations is considered a key milestone ahead of the UN Security Council session scheduled for April 2026, which is expected to assess progress in the political process based on the Secretary-General’s periodic report and the Personal Envoy’s briefing on preliminary consultations and meetings.

The session is also expected to consider whether the new momentum has helped break the stalemate that has marked the issue in recent years, or whether it will simply reproduce the same previous dynamics.

Preliminary Approval

The meeting between the U.S. official and Algerian authorities sparked wide discussion regarding its timing and the messages from Washington, particularly concerning the Western Sahara issue and the U.S. administration’s push to resolve it.

In this context, Algerian political activist Oualid Kebir said that reliable sources confirmed the meeting between Ahmed Attaf and Massad Boulos marked a shift in Algeria’s position on Western Sahara.

Kebir added in a Facebook post on January 27 that the sources emphasized, “Algeria has given preliminary approval to participate in the first U.S.-sponsored preparatory meeting, which will bring the parties together on the basis of autonomy for Western Sahara under Moroccan sovereignty, as stipulated in UN Security Council Resolution 2797.”

The Algerian news site Akhbar Algeria published an analysis on January 27 on the background of the return of the “Trump envoy” to Algeria, emphasizing that the second visit dealt with “weighty files” and took place at a “sensitive political moment.”

The same source noted that the U.S. Embassy framed the visit under the banner of “partnership and prosperity,” but behind the scenes, it points to deeper objectives, including Washington’s efforts to “normalize relations between Algeria and Rabat.”

The site argued that the United States is sending a message that the door remains open for dialogue satisfying all parties in the Western Sahara dispute, aiming to find a consensual formula for the conflict that has lasted nearly half a century.

In contrast, the site added, “Algeria continues to uphold its historic position: the issue is one of decolonization, and the solution can only come through enabling the Sahrawi people to exercise their legitimate right to self-determination, free from any political deals that disregard international legitimacy.”

A Moroccan Perspective

Abdel Fattah Belamchi, head of the Moroccan Center for Parallel Diplomacy and Dialogue of Civilizations, said that Boulos’s talks with Algerian officials fall within the normal context of diplomatic relations recently pursued by U.S. foreign policy in North Africa.

Belamchi told Al-Estiklal that “these moves cannot be separated from the U.S. administration’s consistent position on the Western Sahara issue and its explicit recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the territory.”

He attributed this stance to the fact that the U.S. presidential adviser had previously outlined clear parameters for understanding with Algeria and for managing Algerian-U.S. relations, using the Western Sahara settlement as a primary entry point toward a final resolution of the regional dispute.

Belamchi noted that this U.S. approach was clearly reflected in UN Security Council Resolution 2797, which the United States pushed as the penholder, a development he described as “a significant qualitative shift in Washington’s stance on the Sahara dispute.”

Similarly, an international relations professor at Cadi Ayyad University said that the implications of the U.S. position will remain central to ongoing talks with Algeria, particularly given Algeria’s insufficient response so far to the benchmarks set by Washington.

He added, however, that the United States possesses multiple leverage points and dossiers that could push Algeria to implement the announced U.S. positions, emphasizing that “the American approach is not limited to the Sahara issue alone, but links it to broader economic, security and geopolitical matters.”

Political analyst and Western Sahara specialist Abdelkader Abderrahmane said Boulos’s visit comes in a highly sensitive regional context, reflecting a renewed U.S. focus on North African issues and a reshuffling of strategic partnership priorities in the region.

Abderrahmane, a political activist in Laayoune, the capital of Morocco’s southern provinces, noted that the official, low-key nature of the visit does not diminish the fact that its timing gives it a clear political weight beyond the usual diplomatic courtesies.

In an opinion piece published on Al-3omk on January 27, 2026, he observed that Algerian media coverage of the visit was marked by extreme caution and a conspicuous silence.

“This cool reception suggests political discomfort regarding the content of the visit, particularly given previous indicators that make it difficult to separate it from the Western Sahara issue and its course within international institutions,” Abderrahmane added.

He emphasized that the visit appears to serve a clear political purpose: to signal to decision-making centers in Algeria that their room for maneuver on the issue is narrowing, and that the practical path to settlement passes through serious engagement in the autonomy initiative under Moroccan sovereignty, as the only viable and internationally supported framework.

“The message is primarily directed at Algeria as the key influencer of the Polisario Front’s positions, not as part of an open negotiation process.”

“The main message of the visit is that the era of slogans is over, and what is required today is a realistic approach that prioritizes stability and development, ending a long-standing dispute at the expense of the region’s peoples, above all the real Sahrawi community east of the Berm in Algerian territory,” he concluded.

Preliminary Roundtable

Cross-checked data indicate that the United States is leading diplomatic efforts to launch preliminary consultations on the Western Sahara issue in an informal setting, outside traditional capitals and, at this stage, outside the United Nations framework, according to Africa Intelligence.

In an analysis dated January 23, 2026, the site said the anticipated meeting between the parties is being designed as a “preliminary roundtable” that will not take place in New York or Washington, but at another location that ensures greater confidentiality and control over the discussions.

The report noted that if these consultations yield positive results, the diplomatic pace could accelerate under direct U.S. sponsorship, with the United Nations potentially brought in at a later stage of the process.

According to Africa Intelligence, this approach aligns with the preference of U.S. President Donald Trump, which emphasizes achieving rapid, tangible results, in contrast to the traditional U.N.-led track managed by the Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy to Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura.

The report added that Trump’s adviser for African affairs, Massad Boulos, is managing this process, adopting a centrist position between Rabat and Algiers.

Polisario Response

On the other hand, Polisario Front representative in Spain, Abdullah al-Arabi, said that what followed Morocco’s “triumph” with the recent UN Security Council resolution “has not led to any actual progress,” emphasizing that “the Western Sahara issue remains stalled with no change.”

Al-Arabi explained in a post on the Facebook page Activists on January 27 that “Morocco has not presented any genuine proposal for a solution and is betting on buying time and entrenching the status quo on the ground to bypass the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination.”

“Resolving the Western Sahara issue cannot circumvent international law, and must allow the Sahrawi people a free and fair referendum in which they decide their own future,” Al-Arabi added.

The special adviser to the Polisario Front president, Oubi Bachir Bouchraya, said that “the United States is showing special interest in accompanying the parties to the conflict toward a final resolution based on the latest UN Security Council resolution as well as international conventions.”

Bouchraya told France 24 on January 28, 2026, that the U.S. administration is leading a number of undisclosed moves regarding the conflict to achieve practical results.

The front’s leader emphasized that “the Polisario rejects Morocco’s autonomy proposal on both principled and legal grounds,” adding that he views the Moroccan proposal as entrenching Rabat’s sovereignty over the disputed area rather than offering a genuine compromise between the parties.

Final Stage

Political analyst Othman Bentaleb said that “the Western Sahara issue has entered a countdown phase amid rapid international developments confirming that Morocco’s autonomy proposal, within the framework of national sovereignty, has become the only realistic and implementable solution, while the Polisario Front finds itself in an unprecedented political and legal quandary.”

Bentaleb emphasized in an opinion piece published on Algeria Times on January 29, 2026, that the current shift in the issue “is no longer a temporary political stance, but a stable international trend based on legal legitimacy, historical reference points, and geopolitical realism, in contrast to the declining separatist agenda and the exposure of its regional underpinnings.”

He noted that a Polisario Front delegation visited Washington on January 22 and 23, 2026, but the results were disappointing for the delegation, as the U.S. side reaffirmed its position on resolving the conflict based on the autonomy proposal.

“Notably, this visit reflected a qualitative shift in the international approach to the Front, which is no longer seen as a political actor, but increasingly viewed as an armed militia raising growing security and human rights concerns,” he added.

Bentaleb stressed that Boulos’s visit confirms, based on available information, that “Algeria today faces an international fait accompli, with increasing pressure to fulfill its commitments to the United States, which, according to corroborated leaks, has given it limited deadlines to contribute seriously to ending this long-standing manufactured dispute.”

“The data indicate that Algeria has agreed to open channels of consultation on this file, but it is doing so from a position of political compulsion rather than conviction,” Bentaleb continued.

He concluded that we are at a pivotal moment in the history of this conflict, where the logic of the state and stability prevails, separatist illusions collapse, and autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty becomes a political and legal reality from which there is no turning back.