A charter flight pilot detained by authorities in Guinea is slamming the Trump administration as “useless” as he struggles to return home, Semafor reported on Monday.
“The State Department has taken a low-key approach to the pilots’ detention in Guinea late last year, engaging with officials in Conakry behind the scenes while saying little publicly about the case,” said the report. “Brad Schlenker, who has been stranded in Guinea for more than three months along with Fabio Espinal Nunez, told Semafor in an interview that the US government has been ‘useless’ in helping them.”
Schlenker noted that he had been a Trump supporter, saying, “I voted for this administration because they were supposed to protect Americans.”
The pilots were arrested on a long battery of charges by Guinean military authorities when they stopped in Conakry to refuel between Suriname and Dubai. According to the report, all of this comes as “the Trump administration has actively cultivated Conakry as a partner during a wider push to secure African mineral resources,” as Guinea is home to large amounts of bauxite and iron ore that could be vital to U.S. interests.
“The administration’s lack of public attention to the case has frustrated Schlenker,” said the report. “He told Semafor he has heard from people close to the situation, whom he declined to name, that ‘if someone from the State Department had simply called, if [Secretary of State] Marco Rubio or [Defense Secretary] Pete Hegseth or someone else just picked up the phone, we’d be out of here.’”
This comes after damning reporting about how the Trump administration aides who shuttered USAID — an agency that funded vital development projects in Africa and kept hundreds of thousands of people alive — are getting massive taxpayer-funded perks.
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