Two years after the last U.S. soldiers left Niger, Washington is returning through a very different door. This time there are no drones, no new military base and no counterterrorism mission. The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) has approved up to $414 million in financing for Global Atomic’s Dasa Project, one of Africa’s highest-grade uranium deposits located in the Agadez Region of Niger.

The country had been one of Washington’s main counterterrorism hubs in the Sahel until the last U.S. troops left it in September 2024. Two years later, the Dasa decision comes, but much has changed since. Niamey has built closer ties with Russia, taken a new approach to its uranium relationship with France, and worked more closely with Mali and Burkina Faso.

However, Dasa shows that the relationship with Washington did not disappear with the troops. The question is not whether the U.S. is returning to Niger, but what that relationship can look like now. Niamey has more partners than it had a few years ago, more room to negotiate, and a stronger say in how its strategic resources are managed.

Different kind of return

For much of the past decade, the U.S.-Niger relations were largely seen through a security lens. American forces operated out of Niamey and Agadez, while surveillance and intelligence missions made the country an important hub for monitoring armed groups across the Sahel. However, that model ended in 2024.

Dasa points in another direction. The DFC is not a military institution or a traditional aid agency. It uses loans, guarantees and equity to support private investment abroad while advancing U.S. economic and strategic interests. In its latest package, the agency explicitly linked new investments to reliable energy, critical infrastructure and secure supply chains.

That makes the $414 million more than a mining loan. It suggests that economic statecraft may take on some of the geopolitical weight once carried by security cooperation.

This does not restore the old relationship. Washington is no longer Niger’s dominant security partner, and Niamey has no reason to return to the pre-2024 arrangement. But both sides have found an area where their interests still overlap.

Dasa is therefore better understood not as a return to the past, but as a test of whether a new relationship can be built on different terms.

Uranium strategic again

The other half of the story is uranium itself. The mineral has regained strategic importance as nuclear energy returns to national energy plans and electricity demand rises. The U.S. added uranium to its critical minerals list in 2025, while efforts to reduce dependence on Russian enriched uranium have made alternative supply chains more valuable.

Uranium prices have nearly tripled over the past five years. Washington is also trying to accelerate enrichment capacity before existing waivers on Russian material expire in 2028.

Dasa arrives at the right moment. Global Atomic’s revised study envisages 68.1 million pounds of U3O8 production over a 23-year mine plan. The company says 90% of the uranium covered by its first seven years of offtake agreements has been sold to U.S. utilities.

For Niger, this increases the value of more than the ore underground. The route to market, the source of financing and the identity of long-term buyers all become part of the bargaining power attached to the resource.

More partners, not one bloc

Niger’s recent foreign policy is often described simply as a turn away from the West. That captures part of the change, but it misses the broader pattern.

Niamey has deepened security relations with Russia, strengthened the Alliance of Sahel States with Mali and Burkina Faso and improved ties with Algeria. At the same time, an American public finance institution can still support a major project in which the Nigerien state itself holds a stake.

The ownership structure matters. Global Atomic controls 80% of Dasa, while the government of Niger owns the remaining 20%. Niamey is therefore not merely collecting taxes from a foreign operator. It is a shareholder.

That fits a wider change in the mining sector. In 2025, Niger nationalized SOMAIR, the uranium venture long associated with France’s Orano, arguing that the country should have greater control over the benefits produced by its resources. Orano challenged the move, and the dispute moved into international arbitration.

Dasa offers a different model. Foreign capital remains welcome, but the state’s role is more visible, and the terms are no longer inherited from older relationships.

This is why the American investment should not be read as Niger choosing Washington over Moscow, Paris or anyone else. Russia can remain important in security, Türkiye can expand defense and commercial cooperation, Algeria can matter as a political and logistical partner, and U.S. finance can still enter a uranium project. These relationships do not have to cancel one another out.

Not a French replacement

It would be tempting to say Washington is simply moving into the space France lost. The comparison is understandable, but the two models are different.

France’s role in Niger’s uranium sector took shape over decades, with French companies becoming closely tied to the industry. Over time, that relationship became politically sensitive as debates grew over sovereignty and how the benefits from uranium production were shared.

The current U.S. approach is narrower. Washington is not placing an American mining company in control of Nigerien uranium. It is financing a Canadian company in a project where Niger owns a fifth of the equity.

That gives both sides more flexibility. The United States can gain a place in a strategic supply chain without rebuilding its former security presence. Niger can attract Western capital without reversing the foreign policy choices it has made since 2023.

The distinction may offer a glimpse of how Western engagement in the Sahel is changing. Military access is no longer the only measure of influence. Critical minerals, infrastructure, energy and finance can create their own channels.

Route through Algeria

One of the most interesting questions is how Dasa’s uranium will leave Niger. The country is landlocked, and traditional exports depend on access through West African neighbors. Global Atomic has also explored a northern route through Algeria, taking uranium across the Sahara toward Mediterranean ports.

The route has not been decided yet. If it goes through Algeria, Niger would have another way to get its uranium to Mediterranean ports. It could also bring a stronger economic dimension to the recent improvement in relations between Niamey and Algiers.

For Niamey, geography could become another source of leverage. Niger would have more say over who invests in its uranium sector and how that uranium reaches global markets.

Washington’s new door

The Dasa financing does not mean the U.S. has returned to the Sahel in the form it once knew. There are no U.S. troops coming back with the deal, no restoration of the old counterterrorism architecture and no sign that Niger is reversing its broader foreign policy.

Washington is now using finance to rebuild part of its relationship with Niger. Niamey, for its part, is keeping the door open to U.S. investment while continuing to place greater emphasis on control over its own resources.

That combination may become more common across the Sahel. Governments in the region increasingly want security ties with one partner, infrastructure from another, investment from a third and room to negotiate each relationship on its own terms.

Dasa is still one project, but it captures that shift unusually well. Uranium has opened another door for the U.S. in Niger. But this time, Niamey holds more of the keys.