Less than two weeks after President Donald Trump announced 50 percent tariffs on goods from the tiny African nation of Lesotho, the country’s communications regulator held a meeting with representatives of Starlink.
The satellite business, owned by billionaire and Trump adviser Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, had been seeking access to customers in Lesotho. But it was not until Trump unveiled the tariffs and called for negotiations over trade deals that leaders of the country of roughly 2 million people awarded Musk’s firm the nation’s first-ever satellite internet service license, slated to last for 10 years.
The decision drew a mention in an internal State Department memo obtained by The Washington Post, which states: “As the government of Lesotho negotiates a trade deal with the United States, it hopes that licensing Starlink demonstrates goodwill and intent to welcome U.S. businesses.”
Lesotho is far from the only country that has decided to assist Musk’s firm while trying to fend off U.S. tariffs. The company reached distribution deals with two providers in India in March and has won at least partial accommodations with Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Vietnam, although this is probably not a comprehensive count.
A series of internal government messages obtained by The Post reveal how U.S. embassies and the State Department have pushed nations to clear hurdles for U.S. satellite companies, often mentioning Starlink by name. The documents do not show that the Trump team has explicitly demanded favors for Starlink in exchange for lower tariffs. But they do indicate that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has increasingly instructed officials to push for regulatory approvals for Musk’s satellite firm at a moment when the White House is calling for wide-ranging talks on trade.
In India, government officials have sped through approvals of Starlink with the understanding that doing so could help them cement trade deals with the administration, according to two people familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to reflect private deliberations.
“It’s not likely to be an explicit element of the trade negotiations with the U.S., but the Indian side sees this as an important lubricant that facilitates a deal,” said one of the people briefed on the matter by Indian leadership.
Asked for comment on the satellite firm, the State Department said in a statement: “Starlink is an American-made product that has been game-changing in helping remote areas around the world gain internet connectivity. Any patriotic American should want to see an American company’s success on the global stage, especially over compromised Chinese competitors.”
Musk is a key political ally of Trump’s who spent $277 million backing the president and other Republicans in last year’s elections, and he’s been working in the administration overseeing the U.S. DOGE Service, though he has said he’ll soon step down.
A White House spokesman said the administration would not abide conflicts of interest.
“The only consideration in the Trump administration’s trade negotiations with other countries is what’s best for the American people - which includes American companies succeeding at home and abroad,” spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement. “President Trump will not tolerate any conflicts of interest, and every administration official is following ethical guidelines set by their respective agencies.”
Spokespeople for India, Lesotho and several other countries did not respond to requests for comment, nor did SpaceX.
A Post opinion column last week also reported on Starlink’s expansion in Lesotho, Bangladesh and other countries.
Some experts say the move makes strategic sense for the Trump administration. The United States is engaged in a competition with China over telecommunications around the world, and Starlink is the biggest domestic and international player in satellite internet connectivity.
“When Elon’s name is attached to anything, there’s all sorts of feelings. But if he weren’t the CEO of SpaceX, I don’t think most people would have a problem with the U.S. government advocating for American companies to get international market access,” said Evan Swarztrauber, a senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation, a technology policy think tank.
Swarztrauber added: “We want American satellite companies to do well abroad, especially as our main competition is China. The U.S. has a lead in space, and we should double down on getting other countries to grant regulatory approvals for our companies. Otherwise, it will be Chinese companies that benefit from market access.”
Starlink’s international expansion could unlock multibillion-dollar revenue streams. Capturing just 1 percent of India’s consumer broadband market could generate nearly $1 billion annually, with comparable upside in Latin America and Africa, according to Kimberly Siversen Burke, director of government affairs at Quilty Space, a space-sector intelligence firm. She noted these are early estimates based on Quilty Space’s financial model.
The cables obtained by The Post shed new light into how U.S. officials are encouraging countries worldwide to adopt Starlink.
Such efforts are not entirely new. The Biden administration was pushing embassies to adopt Starlink and other satellite-based internet services, the cables show. In early December, an “informational” cable went to diplomatic posts with then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s signature, touting the benefits of “low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites,” calling them “a resilient alternative to traditional internet service providers.” At the time, 50 American overseas posts were using LEO services, the cable stated, but the State Department planned to expand the technology to more posts across the globe.
Blinken’s cable explicitly said the department wanted to push additional options, not just Starlink: State “will increase the number of available LEO vendors as they become available in the marketplace,” the cable stated.
Under Trump, Rubio has signed at least two cables asking department staffers worldwide to promote American satellite services - including Starlink, mentioned by name in both missives - to combat “Russian space incumbents” and Chinese companies offering the same service. The cables labeled Russian and Chinese satellite-based internet services a potential threat to America’s national security.
The cables appeared to go beyond Blinken’s December communication, which detailed plans for more American posts to adopt satellite-based internet, by instructing post staffers to persuade the countries where they are to choose the service.
On March 28, one of the cables shows, an “action request” went out with Rubio’s signature citing Starlink by name and arguing that “U.S. government advocacy is essential to maintain and extent their global ‘first-mover’ advantage.’”
A later cable shows the U.S. Embassy staff in Turkey delivering some of Rubio’s talking points to a top Turkish space official, who the cable says had expressed interest in purchasing satellite services like those offered by Starlink and Amazon’s Project Kuiper. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Post.)
Some of the cables came after Trump announced worldwide tariffs of varying levels on April 2.
One State Department cable, issued in mid-April, said a top Malian official had met with staff members at the embassy in Bamako and shared his country’s interest in procuring Starlink. A comment added by embassy staffers noted that Mali is “in the process of developing a legal framework and platform to register and identify all Starlink users” and that, once that’s in place, the Bamako embassy’s “Deal Team” had already “identified” one Malian company “preparing to set up a Starlink franchise.”
At least two countries have explicitly discussed or moved toward adopting Musk’s Starlink as a means of avoiding Trump’s tariffs and negotiating a better trade deal with the United States, the cables show.
The 49 percent tariff rate on goods from Cambodia “came as a shock” to Cambodian government officials and the country’s private sector because they had hoped to avoid such measures, according to a cable from the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh on April 4, two days after Trump announced the import taxes.
The day after Trump’s announcement, the cable shows, leaders of the American Chamber of Commerce in Cambodia - a nonprofit made up of U.S. and Cambodian companies, known as AmCham - met with Ministry of Economy and Finance officials to discuss what the country could or should do to smooth relations with the Trump administration.
Representatives for AmCham urged “decisive action in offering concessions to the United States,” the cable reported, which included “recommending that Cambodia offer duty-free access for U.S. imports (specifically mentioning Ford vehicles) and expeditiously approve Starlink’s market entry request.”
An earlier cable from the Phnom Penh embassy, dated March 28, shows Cambodian government officials were already considering such a strategy before the import duties were rolled out: “Post has observed the Cambodian government - likely due to concern over the possibility of U.S. tariffs - signal its desire to help balance our trade relationship by promoting the market entry of leading U.S. companies such as Boeing and Starlink,” the cable stated.
Another cable from April 17 reported that Starlink was pushing for a license to operate in Djibouti. A comment added by State Department staffers noted Starlink’s entry into Djibouti would be an opportunity to open the country’s market and boost “an American company.” Embassy staffers wrote they would help Starlink as much as they could: “Post will continue to follow up with Starlink in identifying government officials and facilitating discussions.”
So far, the U.S. government has not struck any trade deals since the tariffs were announced.
W. Gyude Moore, a fellow at the Center for Global Development, a Washington-based think tank, said it appears more African countries are approving Starlink than were before the Trump administration, although precise data is difficult to come by.
He said it is difficult for African officials to disentangle U.S. government demands from Musk’s. For instance, the Trump administration was exerting new pressure on South Africa just as Starlink stepped up its attempts to advance in the country.
“If you were a South African government official and this was before you, it’d be very difficult to separate,” Moore said. He added: “It might be that there’s nothing formal - that there’s no direct pressure on them - but people can conclude for themselves that Musk is close to Trump, and if I stall his business here, it could affect my country. They can see their life might be a lot easier if seen or perceived as getting along with Elon Musk.”
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John Hudson and Adam Taylor in Washington and Karishma Mehrotra in New Delhi contributed to this report.