Pakistan, Somalia and Haiti are among 11 countries that have signed lobbying deals with Trump-linked figures, with many bartering key resources including minerals in exchange for humanitarian or military support
Some of the world’s lowest-income and most aid-dependent nations are paying millions to lobbyists with ties to US President Donald Trump as the country halts foreign assistance, a new Global Witness investigation has found.
Many of these countries are home to one or more armed conflicts and are offering access to valuable natural resources, including minerals or other strategic assets, in exchange for humanitarian or military support.
Since the US election in November 2024, 17 of the world’s Least Developed Countries and largest recipients of US aid – Angola, Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Haiti, Honduras, India, Iraq (Kurdistan), Liberia, Moldova, Mozambique, Pakistan, the Philippines, Rwanda, Somalia, Ukraine, Venezuela and Yemen – have signed lobbying contracts with US firms worth more than $21 million in fees paid until end-2025.
What’s more, documents filed with the US Department of Justice reveal that firms with ties to Trump and his inner circle are cashing in.
They have negotiated contracts worth more than $17 million in fees due in 2025 in the six months since Trump was elected, records submitted under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) show.
Relative to the size of their economies, $17 million paid by these nations would be equivalent to the US paying out nearly half a billion dollars.
This comes at a time when access to natural resources has become a Trump fixation. This includes minerals like rare earths that are considered critical to US security, whose supply chains are controlled by China.
From threatening to annex mineral-rich Greenland, to waging a trade war and seeking to boost domestic production including by mining the deep seabed, mineral access has become central to Trump’s agenda.
While the revolving door between governments and lobbyists is nothing new, and countries seeking influence over US decisions that could significantly affect them is to be expected, Global Witness is concerned by the wider dynamics that are driving new deals.
“We’re seeing a dramatic cut in aid, combined with an explicit rush for critical minerals, and willingness by the Trump administration to secure deals in exchange for aid or military assistance,” said Emily Stewart, Head of Policy, Transition Minerals at Global Witness.
“These dynamics create a potential situation where dealmaking in Washington is more desperate, less favourable to low-income countries and more open to resource exploitation at the expense of impacted communities.”
Our analysis of lobbying documents reveals that of the 17 countries that have signed lobbying deals, eight are pitching new investment opportunities.
Some of these proposals echo a minerals deal signed in April with Ukraine, which will give the US preferential rights to its mineral and oil and gas reserves in return for support in the war against Russian aggression.
Like Ukraine, nine other countries that have signed new lobbying contracts are resource-rich nations that are home to one or more armed conflicts. This includes the DRC, which is negotiating a minerals-for-security deal with the US.
Monthly fees for lobbying contracts can run up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. To represent Angola, Squire Patton Boggs, a firm with established links to Trump, collects $312,500 per month.
Some firms have commissioned third parties with access to Trump to carry out their contracts. Seiden Law, which won a deal in April worth $200,000 a month to “promote the exploration and sale of” rare earth and other critical minerals on behalf of Pakistan, outsourced the contract to a firm owned by Trump’s former bodyguard, Keith Schiller.
Global Witness reached out to all the firms named in this report to give them an opportunity to comment on our findings.
Putting America first
Many countries hit by conflict and facing humanitarian crises have historically relied heavily on US aid. But in late January, Trump froze over $60 billion in foreign aid programmes.
The order left millions of vulnerable people without access to critical care, including food, clean water and basic health services.
At the same time, Trump stressed that every dollar of overseas spending must put America first, to make the US safer, stronger or richer.
US aid has often had strings attached. But many of the deals now being proposed, which are detailed in the table below, are explicitly transactional, tying US political, humanitarian or military support to Trump’s “America First” agenda.
Contracts table
We looked deeper into the context around these deals and the individuals who are negotiating them, to reveal what’s at stake: from contested minerals in Pakistan, to untapped resource wealth in conflict-affected Somalia and Kurdistan, and investment opportunities in Haiti, where gang violence is fuelling the country’s worst humanitarian crisis in decades.
Pakistan’s conflict minerals
The US aid freeze has been devastating for Pakistan, which struggles with extreme poverty. Over half of its population lacks access to basic primary healthcare, and some $845 million in aid projects has been suspended, leaving millions of people cut off from lifesaving health services.
But Pakistan has a bargaining chip: vast, unexploited mineral deposits, including copper, gold, lithium and rare earths. Estimated to be worth $8 trillion, these reserves are believed to extend for 230,000 square miles – an area the size of Ukraine.
On 8 April, during the Pakistan Minerals Investment Forum, the government took out two contracts with Trump-linked lobbyists worth a total of $450,000 a month. The contracts are wide-ranging, but there are two elements at their core: military support and investment opportunities.
Pakistan is now represented by multiple individuals in Trump’s inner circle: Trump’s former bodyguard Keith Schiller; the Trump Organization’s first compliance chief George Sorial; Robert Seiden, a private investigator who has worked for Trump; and Squire Patton Boggs, a lobbying firm whose Trump-linked staff include his former economic adviser Everett Eissenstat, and until recently, former defence secretary Mark Esper.
Squire Patton Boggs has been subcontracted by a firm called Orchid Advisors LLC, which appears to have been specifically set up for the deal. Run by two venture capitalists, it was registered on the same day the deal with Pakistan was signed.
Schiller, Sorial and Seiden will counsel Pakistan on setting up US economic partnerships, “to promote the exploration and sale of rare earth/critical minerals.” They will also advise the country on a range of defence-related issues, including accessing military funding and counter-terrorism support.
The two issues are interlinked. Much of Pakistan’s mineral wealth is in two provinces bordering Afghanistan that are home to complex armed conflicts. Political resistance in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is fuelled by Pakistan’s resource extraction, and tensions are only rising.
In 2024, there were nearly 500 separate “terrorist attacks” in the two provinces, killing more than 800 people, according to the Pak Institute for Peace Studies.
By incentivising investment in these provinces, any deal – like the deal with Ukraine – would risk tying US mineral access to conflict outcomes.
A new business model appears to be emerging. Pakistan is Schiller and Sorial’s first foreign client, after they set up their company Javelin Advisors in December. But they also represent a US advisory firm to “promote potential U.S. Government-sponsored reconstruction initiatives in Ukraine,” according to a senate filing. Reconstruction is a core part of the Ukraine mineral access deal.
A deal with Armenia might also be in the works, after the country’s labour minister posted a photo in March with Schiller, Sorial and Seiden at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Palm Beach resort, as reported by Politico.
As Russia expands its military presence into Armenia, the country has been seeking to attract US interest by promoting investment opportunities in its mining and nuclear power sectors. It has substantial mineral reserves in Syunik and Vayots Dzor provinces, where strikes by Azerbaijan have threatened Armenia’s sovereignty.
Minerals before justice in Congo and Rwanda
Along with Ukraine, the DRC is among the countries most impacted by the US aid freeze. Last year, it was the largest recipient of US humanitarian aid globally, receiving $910 million. The US provided 70% of its total aid, mostly for food, water, sanitation and shelter for more than 7 million displaced people.
The DRC is facing a humanitarian crisis. Armed rebel group M23 is advancing across its eastern provinces, capturing swathes of mineral-rich territory in North and South Kivu, allegedly backed by Rwandan forces.
With hundreds of thousands fleeing the conflict, the withdrawal of lifesaving aid has pushed “an already dire humanitarian situation closer to catastrophe,” the UN Refugee Agency has warned.
The country’s president Felix Tshisekedi has been struggling to shore up international support, including from the EU which buys minerals from Rwanda, where the DRC’s coltan is smuggled. These conflict minerals are exported to global markets, including Europe, as Global Witness revealed in April.
Tshisekedi is now offering US companies preferential access to his country’s natural resources in return for military support.
The same day that Trump issued an executive order freezing aid, the DRC took out a lobbying contract with Ballard Partners. Owned by Brian Ballard, a major donor to the Trump campaign, the firm has seen a bigger jump in profits than any other since Trump’s return to office, according to analysis by Politico.
Ballard has reportedly known Trump for 30 years and was a lobbyist for the Trump Organization long before the 2016 election. Trump’s current chief of staff, Susie Wiles, previously worked for Ballard Partners, as did Pam Bondi, who gave up her position as partner earlier this year to become the President’s Attorney General.
Filings show that Ballard Partners would seek to “advance economic growth and matters concerning human rights issues in East Congo.”
By April 2025, the DRC had taken out three contracts, including with other Trump-linked firms, and was sending competing delegations and lobbyists to Washington. One company, Earhart Turner, secured an eye-watering $5 million six-month contract that was later suspended.
Earhart Turner is owned by Karen Giorno, a senior advisor on Trump’s first election campaign, and the DRC contract was the firm’s first lobbying deal. Earhart Turner has pledged to bring “Trump-style tenacity to Washington’s lobbying scene.”
One of the DRC’s contracts is with Von Batten-Montague-York, whose owner Karl Von Batten told Global Witness that his firm had been engaged with the government well before Trump’s second term.
“Our firm is deeply committed to humanitarian aid,” he wrote, adding that US investment is a pathway to a more sustainable economic future in the DRC.
In late March, the state-run Rwanda Development Board signed its own lobbying contract worth $80,000 a month with Yorktown Solutions, which also represents multiple Ukrainian state agencies.
Since then, Trump has appointed a new Africa adviser – Massad Boulos, who is also the father-in-law of Trump’s daughter, Tiffany. Boulos worked with the DRC and Rwanda to sign a peace treaty in late June that is expected to lead to mineral access for the US.
Regional deals and sanctions relief
Meanwhile, neighbouring Angola in January renewed its $3.75 million annual contract with Squire Patton Boggs, which has been lobbying on critical minerals since Trump’s first term. Since 2019, Angola has paid more than $28 million to the lobbying firm in the hope of securing more US trade and investment, along with military support.
In emails to the State Department, Squire Patton Boggs has highlighted Angola’s reserves of rare earths and other critical minerals as a key opportunity, while arguing that Angola’s Lobito Corridor is “vital” to accessing minerals in the DRC.
The Lobito Corridor is the US and EU’s flagship critical minerals project in Africa. Its centrepiece is a railway that will connect to large industrial mines in Zambia and the DRC, transporting copper and cobalt to a port in Angola, to counter China’s mineral supply chain dominance.
Elsewhere in Southern Africa, the African Union’s ambassador to the US, Hilda Suka-Mafudze, had proposed a partnership with Zimbabwe that she said was aligned with Trump’s “America First” agenda. She discussed this proposal with Ford & London Global Strategies, FARA filings show. The firm is run by Diana London, a commentator and columnist for pro-Trump channel Newsmax.
Zimbabwe is subject to US sanctions, imposed in 2001 over human rights violations and allegations of corruption. These should be lifted, Suka-Mafudze wrote in an email to London. A sanctions-free Zimbabwe was an economic opportunity for the US, she wrote, enabling it to secure “vital resources” including critical minerals like lithium, and to counter China’s influence in Southern Africa.
London told Global Witness she had registered with FARA out of an “abundance of caution” but had not taken on any business for foreign companies.
Minerals, oil and gas, and strategic ports
Several countries including Yemen have hired or renewed contracts with BGR Government Affairs, another large lobbying firm with extensive connections to Trump.
Former BGR partner Sean Duffy is now the President’s transportation secretary, while the firm’s managing director, David Urban, was senior advisor to Trump’s 2016 campaign and was tipped to replace Reince Priebus as his chief-of-staff.
In December, Somalia hired BGR on a one-year $600,000 contract, as members of Trump’s team called for the US to recognise separatist Somaliland as an independent nation.
Somalia had been a major beneficiary of US aid, receiving almost $1.2 billion in humanitarian and security support in 2023.
The country is now making the case that it is open for business, signing an onshore oil and gas exploration deal with Türkiye in April, and announcing its openness to investment in other resources, including minerals. This is despite decades of conflict, and its current ranking by the Fragile States Index as the world’s most fragile state.
With aid frozen and concerns intensifying that the US could cut ties entirely, in March Somalia offered Washington “exclusive operational control” over two strategic ports and airbases in the country that it does not even control itself.
Meanwhile, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) renewed its contract with BGR in February to promote foreign investment and economic development in the Kurdistan region of Iraq – another mineral-rich region – and renewed a second contract with Trump-linked firm Greenberg Traurig the following week.
Two months later, in April, the US and the KRG discussed the “crucial” reopening of the Iraq-Türkiye Pipeline, which closed in 2023 amid regional tensions. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio highlighted the “strong partnership” between the two in expanding business opportunities and promoting regional stability.
Opportunity in crisis
Also seeking greater US investment is Haiti, which relied on Washington for almost two-thirds of its aid last year.
The country is facing its worst humanitarian crisis in decades, with heavily armed gangs now controlling most of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and half of the population suffering acute food insecurity.
More than 5,600 people were killed last year in gang violence, according to the UN. As the crisis intensifies, Haiti’s Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé has hired former Trump ambassador and senior advisor to the 2024 Trump campaign Carlos Trujillo as a lobbyist to support recovery efforts – and to increase US trade and investment.
Trujillo also earlier this year signed a lobbying contract with Guyana, where US firm Global Venture Consulting has signed a $1.9 billion deal to map the country’s mineral resources.
Global Venture is owned by Emily Scott King and her husband Mark King, who both reportedly worked with US Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan for a task force that created mining jobs as part of a broader counterinsurgency strategy.
In Haiti, Trujillo’s investment pitch will likely appeal to Rubio, who as a senator co-sponsored the extension of the HOPE/HELP act, which is designed to incentivise Haiti to become an offshore garment manufacturing hub for the US through duty-free imports for textiles and clothing.
At a press conference in February in the Dominican Republic, which borders Haiti, Rubio said he hoped Congress would pass the bill.
“It’s important to begin to think about Haiti’s future, its economic future, and what we can be doing now to set the stage for an economic renaissance,” he said.
But the press conference was about something quite different. Since 2023, the US Army Corps of Engineers had been prospecting for rare earths in the Dominican Republic on the Haitian border and now claimed to have identified gross reserves of some 100 million tonnes.
These were “valuable minerals,” Rubio said. While there was no specific proposal to announce at this stage, it had raised the potential “to do something very historic and unique.”
Policy recommendations
To the US government:
- Restore the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA): This historically prohibited US companies from engaging in bribery or corrupt practices abroad. The recent dismantling of this law creates opportunities for exploitative and opaque deals, especially in fragile states rich in natural resources.
- Strengthen FARA Enforcement: Ensure rigorous enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) to monitor and disclose foreign lobbying activities involving foreign governments offering strategic assets in exchange for support.
- Conflict of Interest Regulations: Implement stricter regulations to prevent former government officials from engaging in lobbying activities that may pose conflicts of interest, particularly when representing foreign governments.
- Fair Trade Policies: Ensure that agreements involving access to natural resources from foreign nations are conducted transparently, with fair compensation and without coercion.
- Immediate Restoration of Aid: Reverse the foreign aid freeze, particularly for critical programs like the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and USAID initiatives. The suspension has disrupted essential health services, leading to increased mortality rates, especially among children and vulnerable populations. Aid should never be used as a tool for coercion for trade deals.
- Recommit to International Partnerships: Reengage with international organisations and agreements focused on humanitarian aid, climate change and sustainable development to restore global leadership and trust.
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To the international community:
- Promote Ethical Resource Agreements: Ensure that trade is fair and transparent
- Support for Capacity Building: Assist resource-rich developing countries in building the capacity to manage and negotiate resource contracts effectively, reducing dependency on external intermediaries.
- Global Resource Governance Framework: Collaborate to establish a framework that promotes ethical extraction and trade of natural resources, safeguarding the interests of developing nations.
- Diversify Funding Sources: Encourage multilateral organisations and donor countries to increase contributions to global humanitarian funds, reducing reliance on any single nation’s aid.
- Strengthen International Anti-Bribery Agreements: Encourage G7, G20 and OECD countries to reaffirm and tighten commitments under the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention and other frameworks, creating a level playing field that discourages corrupt competition for resources in vulnerable nations.
To all actors:
- Invest in Development: Prioritise long-term investments in education, healthcare and infrastructure in developing nations to build resilience against exploitation and reduce the need for transactional agreements.
- Conflict Resolution Support: Provide diplomatic and logistical support for conflict resolution initiatives in regions where resource-related disputes are prevalent.
Methodology
Global Witness analysed documents submitted to the US Department of Justice in line with the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) requirements.
The agreements between governments and US lobbyist firms, the purpose of the agreements and the contract values are contained in documents Exhibit A and Exhibit B. We collected a list of documents filed within the six-month period starting on 5 November 2024, when Donald Trump was elected president.
The filing information included the name of the lobbyist firm, the country and organisation being represented, the names of the lobbying staff, the date of filing and the URL for the copy of the filing in PDF format.
We searched these filings for agreements between US lobbyists and the world’s least developed and most aid-dependent countries.
We defined these countries by combining the world’s 44 Least Developed Countries, defined by the UN, with the top 50 recipients of foreign aid and development assistance from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2023, the last complete year according to the State Department’s Foreign Assistance website. This gave us a list of 68 countries.
To obtain a list of top USAID recipients in 2023, we analysed the Foreign Assistance complete dataset and selected records of financial assistance given in the fiscal year 2023 by USAID.
We have only included in our analysis of FARA filings the contracts from ministerial or other government departments. The final list included 38 unique contracts between 32 lobbying registrants and the governments of 17 countries.
To establish connections to Trump or his inner circle, we relied on reporting by Politico and other major news outlets.
From the FARA filings we extracted the contract value (usually agreed to be paid in monthly or quarterly instalments) and calculated the value to be paid until the end of 2025.
To derive the figure for the economic burden to the US equivalent to the $17 million in contract fees paid by low-income and aid-deprived economies to Trump associates ($454 million), we first expressed each contract value as a proportion of the paying country’s GDP per person, then multiplied it by the US GDP per person. We used purchasing-power-parity-adjusted GDP figures for 2024 published by the IMF. PPP figures accounts for local cost of living and are a more accurate expression of real purchasing power.
Authors
Clare Hammond, Investigations Lead – Transition Minerals
Petra Matijevic, Data Investigator