After The Washington Post earlier this month revealed that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had instructed the State Department to help Starlink expand in order to fend off Chinese technological influence, an extensive ProPublica article published Thursday dove deeper into what those campaigns looked like at the ground level. According to cables sent between the State Department and US embassies in four developing countries in Africa – Gambia, Djibouti, Cameroon and Lesotho – diplomats have been arranging meetings with Starlink executives and foreign regulators and pushing them to fast-track licensing agreements for the satellite internet company, as a sign of “friendship” with the United States.
Should those countries refuse to move faster, those diplomats warn, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) – the Musk agency responsible for massive job and budget cuts throughout the government – might suddenly target programs and funds earmarked for their countries.
Shortly after Trump’s inauguration, Sharon Cromer, the U.S. ambassador to Gambia, held a meeting with Lamin Jabbi, the head of Gambia’s communications ministry, about speeding up regulatory approval for Starlink. During the meeting, per ProPublica, she mentioned several key initiatives, such as a ”$25 million project to improve the electrical system,” were under review – a reference Gambian officials saw as a veiled threat. “The implication was that they were connected,” said Hassan Jallow, the top deputy to Jabbi.
The pressure campaign escalated in March, after the State Department set up meetings with Starlink while Jabbi was in D.C. for a World Bank summit, which all ended in Jabbi refusing to budge:
In the hours that followed, Starlink and the U.S. government’s campaign intensified in a way that underscored the degree of coordination between the two parties. The company told Jabbi it would cancel his scheduled D.C. meeting with State Department officials because “there was no more need,” Jallow said.
The State Department meeting never happened. Instead, 4,000 miles away in Gambia’s capital, Cromer would try an even more aggressive approach.
That same day, Cromer had already met with Gambia’s equivalent of a commerce secretary to lobby him to help pave the way for Starlink. Then she was informed about the disappointing meeting Starlink had had in D.C., according to State Department records. By day’s end, Cromer had sent a letter to the nation’s president.
“I am writing to seek your support to allow Starlink to operate in The Gambia,” the letter opened. Over three pages, the ambassador described her concerns about Jabbi’s agency and listed the ways that Gambians could benefit from Starlink. She also said the company had satisfied conditions set by Jabbi’s predecessor.
“I respectfully urge you to facilitate the necessary approvals for Starlink to commence operations in The Gambia,” Cromer concluded. “I look forward to your favorable response.”
The efforts described in the three other countries are similar, though each nation has tried to handle the Starlink-State Department nexus in different ways. In Lesotho, for instance, a Starlink deal was fast-tracked past a major multinational competitor just as the country was hit with Trump’s 50 percent tariff, which the U.S. embassy “bragged” about facilitating. In internal cables, senior diplomats have said that they need to secure these licenses for Musk within the next 18 months in order to secure a “first-mover advantage” for Starlink to stay ahead of foreign competition.
Several former U.S. diplomats told ProPublica that the State Department’s actions were alarmingly unprecedented and verged on “crony capitalism”, as Kenneth Fairfax, a former U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan, put it. “If this was done by another country, we absolutely would call this corruption,” agreed Kristofer Harrison, who served as a high-level State Department official in the George W. Bush administration. “Because it is corruption.”
