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Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama used a United Nations platform in New York on Tuesday to directly criticize the Trump administration’s approach to Black history, warning that U.S. policies stripping slavery and racial injustice from public institutions are being adopted as a model by other governments and private organizations worldwide.
Mahama, speaking at a high-level event on reparatory justice at UN headquarters, said the pattern of changes pursued by President Donald Trump since returning to office was actively conditioning broader acceptance of historical erasure.
“These policies are becoming a template for other governments as well as some private institutions,” he said. “At the very least, they are slowly normalizing the erasure.”
The Ghanaian leader cited specific developments in the United States, including the removal of Black history courses from school curricula, institutional directives prohibiting instruction on what he described as “the truth of slavery, segregation and racism,” and an escalating wave of book bans targeting works that address those subjects.
The remarks came as Mahama prepared to formally present a landmark resolution to the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, on the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The draft resolution, submitted by Ghana on behalf of the African Group, seeks to declare the trafficking of enslaved Africans and racialized chattel enslavement of Africans a crime against humanity. The initiative has the backing of 40 African Union member states, and the resolution is expected to be debated on March 25.
The African Group at the United Nations has stepped up diplomatic efforts to secure backing for the resolution after one delegation indicated its intention to call for a vote and questions emerged over the final wording of the text. Ghana’s Foreign Minister Samuel Ablakwa said the European Union and the United States had already communicated their opposition. Neither the EU nor the U.S. mission to the UN responded to requests for comment.
A White House spokesperson, responding to Mahama’s remarks, said Trump had done more for Black Americans than any previous president and that the administration was proud to have received what it described as “historic support” from the Black community in the 2024 presidential election. “He is working around the clock to deliver for them and make our country greater than ever before,” the spokesperson said.
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Since Trump returned to the presidency, his administration has issued executive orders and directives targeting cultural and historical institutions, including museums, national parks, and monuments, on grounds that they promote what the White House has characterized as “anti-American” ideology. These actions have included the removal of some slavery-related exhibits, the restoration of Confederate-era monuments, and restrictions on how topics such as racism and segregation are taught. Civil rights advocates have argued the changes risk undoing decades of progress in how the country publicly reckons with its racial past.
Mahama’s trip to New York marks one of his most visible forays into international diplomacy since returning to Ghana’s presidency. His itinerary began on Tuesday with a wreath-laying ceremony at the African Burial Ground National Monument, a site dating to the 17th and 18th centuries believed to contain the remains of more than 15,000 Africans, both enslaved and free, who lived and died in colonial New York.
It is not the first time Mahama has taken aim at the Trump administration’s conduct on racial and continental matters. He previously condemned Trump’s claims regarding white genocide and land seizures in South Africa, describing them as an insult to Africans. He also announced last year that Ghana had reached an agreement to accept West Africans deported under U.S. immigration enforcement operations.
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The reparations resolution draws on years of coordinated continental and Caribbean organizing. The African Union last year set out to create a unified vision among its 55 member states on what reparations may look like, ranging from financial compensation and formal apologies to policy reforms. AU leaders endorsed the proposed resolution at a summit last month. Member states of the Caribbean Community, which has developed its own reparations framework, are expected to support the measure, as is Brazil.
The draft resolution was first announced during the 80th Session of the UN General Assembly in September 2025, and represents the culmination of sustained continental efforts to elevate Africa’s reparations agenda within the international system. Mahama serves as the African Union Champion for Advancing the Cause of Justice and the Payment of Reparations, a designation granted by the continental body.
Several European countries have opposed reparations, arguing that present-day governments should not be held liable for historical crimes, while others, including the Netherlands, have issued formal apologies or expressed regret.
The resolution is scheduled to come before the General Assembly on Wednesday. Whether it passes by consensus or advances to a formal vote will depend on negotiations still under way between member state delegations, Ghana’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Samuel Yao Kumah, told reporters ahead of the session.
