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1 1 (September 15, 2023)

handle is hein.crs/govemvr0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Con gres&onal Fes info rig I I~ live d ha 3rch Service since 1914 September 15, 2023 Liberia U.S.-Liberia relations are close, based on a unique shared history: the country was established in the 19th century by Black Americans who resettled in Africa, and the United States has historically been Liberia's top development and diplomatic partner. Liberia has been a leading recipient of U.S. aid in Africa over the past two decades-with influxes of funding to help the country recover from back-to-back civil wars (1989-1997 and 1999-2003) and a large Ebola outbreak (2014-2016)-though annual U.S. aid levels are on the decline. There is a sizable U.S.-based Liberian diaspora, and surveys suggest that Liberians' views of the United States in Liberia are among the most positive in Africa. Corruption by Liberian elites has been an enduring point of friction; U.S. authorities have sanctioned several senior Liberian officials for corruption since 2020. The U.S. Role in Lberia Present-day Liberia was founded by emancipated and free- born Black Americans who resettled with the support of the American Colonization Society, a U.S. group that aimed to relocate Black Americans to Africa as an alternative to integration in the United States. Americo-Liberians, descendants of this population, controlled the state until a 1980 coup. Abuses by the ensuing regime spurred unrest, culminating in the onset of conflict in 1989. Liberia's wars killed hundreds of thousands, displaced millions, and caused tens of thousands to seek asylum in the United States. The United States was the lead donor to the relief effort and committed extensive funding to restructure the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) and support stabilization and governance reform after the wars. More recently, the United States provided roughly $600 million and deployed U.S. military personnel to Liberia in response to a 2014- 2016 Ebola outbreak that killed nearly 5,000 Liberians. Pots President George Weah, a former international soccer star, took office in 2018. He succeeded President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa's first elected female head of state, who oversaw a transition marked by general stability and robust economic growth until the Ebola outbreak. The epidemic curtailed travel, commerce, and economic output, disrupted education, and decimated the health workforce before being largely controlled by early 2015. Citing governance gains, the United States and U.N. Security Council ended their Liberia sanctions regimes in 2015 and 2016, respectively. A long-running U.N. peacekeeping mission withdrew in 2018. President Weah has championed new laws to improve state administration, strengthen anti-graft agencies, and permit dual citizenship, a key diaspora demand. Global economic headwinds arguably have stifled Weah's development agenda, however. Public discontent has mounted over the cost of living and alleged corruption and mismanagement by his government, prompting sporadic protests. Figure I. Liberia at a Glance Source: CRS graphic, with population data from Liberia's 2022 census and all other data from CIA World Factbook, 2023. Liberia is scheduled to hold presidential and parliamentary elections on October 10, 2023; President Weah is running for a second six-year term. Opinion polls suggest support for Weah has waned since the start of his tenure: in a 2022 survey, roughly three in four Liberians polled stated that the country was moving in the wrong direction, and that corruption was on the rise. At the same time, Liberia's opposition remains fractured after the collapse of an opposition coalition in 2022. Whether opposition leaders unite behind a single challenger in the event of a runoff between the top two candidates-required if no candidate secures 50% of votes in the first round-is a key question. Fordg n Affairs United States. U.S. and Liberian observers have described U.S.-Liberia ties as a special relationship, and the United States arguably remains Liberia's most influential partner. Among African countries, Liberia regularly has the highest rate of alignment with the United States on U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) votes that the State Department classifies as important, including those related to Israel. U.S. firms play important roles in Liberia's economy. Firestone Natural Rubber Company, a subsidiary of Bridgestone Americas (the U.S. subsidiary of Japanese firm Bridgestone), operates the world's largest rubber plantation in Liberia and is the country's top private sector employer. (Rubber regularly accounts for over 95% of U.S. imports from Liberia.) Liberia's ship registry-the largest registry in the world by tonnage, and a key source of government revenues-is headquartered in Virginia. Russia. The Weah administration has described Russia's invasion of Ukraine as condemnable, unprovoked, and unjustified, and expressed support for Ukraine's military

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