Under the administration of American President Gerald Ford, tensions were piqued by the countries' support for opposing sides in the Angolan Civil War, and by the United States's ongoing cordiality with the apartheid government in South Africa, which remained a sticking point throughout the 1980s.

Relations improved considerably in the mid-1970s, both because of the foreign policy initiatives of Jimmy Carter's administration and because of the increased importance of Nigerian oil for the United States in the aftermath of the 1973 OPEC crisis.

In the 1980s, ongoing trade and investment links were accompanied by simmering diplomatic tensions over the Nigerian government's failure to curb cross-border crime and drug trafficking, and over increased reports of human rights abuses inside Nigeria.

Bilateral relations are increasingly centred around military, security, and counterterrorism cooperation in West Africa, particularly multilateral initiatives in the Gulf of Guinea and on ISIS and Boko Haram.

[8] In his message to the new government on 2 October,[7] Eisenhower promised Nigeria the support of the United States (U.S.), but also warned about possible threats from outside its borders – understood as a veiled reference to the Soviet Union, and therefore a harbinger of the Cold War dynamics that were to shape Nigeria–U.S.

[8][13] In 1964, a U.S. State Department policy document explained that, "The primary interest of the U.S. in Nigeria is to see it grow and prosper, within the Free World, as a leader and good example for other African countries.

[16] Traditionally deferent to the role of the former colonial powers in Africa, and thoroughly entangled in Vietnam, President Lyndon B. Johnson considered the war a "British affair" from which American interests were largely insulated.

[21] At the exhortation of a powerful pro-Biafran lobby in Washington,[21] the U.S. provided significant relief, estimated at more than $9 million, to address the humanitarian crisis that had arisen from the prolonged blockade of Biafra.

[29] In Angola – as in other cases in the 20th century – this posture put Nigeria at odds with the U.S., due to the latter's containment policy, closeness with the former colonial powers, and links with the apartheid government in South Africa.

[30] In January 1976, Ford wrote a letter to Muhammed in which he promised to encourage South Africa to end its intervention in the Angolan Civil War, but only if Muhammad told MPLA to request the departure of Soviet and Cuban troops.

[35] However, the month after Ford's letter, in February 1976, tensions were further heightened when Muhammed was assassinated in an attempted coup in which the Nigerian government suspected the involvement of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

[36] Anti-American demonstrations by students followed in Lagos and elsewhere in Nigeria: protestors burned American flags, attacked U.S. diplomatic outposts, and demanded the nationalization of U.S. Gulf Oil.

[45][30] Instead, Carter sought to project the U.S.'s liberal image abroad, emphasising principles of global justice and human rights; he also publicly denounced apartheid, and criticised the Ford administration's strategy in the Angolan Civil War.

In October 1977, for example, though the U.S. supported a six-month arms embargo on South Africa at the UN Security Council, it also joined Britain and France in vetoing the Afro-Asian draft resolution which called for mandatory economic and military sanctions.

[57] During Carter's visit to Lagos in April 1978, Obasanjo was openly critical of the U.S. and the West for their lukewarm stance on apartheid and their continued collaboration with Pretoria on military and economic matters.

The U.S. State Department criticised the annulment as "outrageous", and additionally expressed concern about "the continuing repression of the press and democratic forces" amid the political instability that followed.

The following month, President Clinton issued a proclamation under the Immigration and Nationality Act, restricting entry into the U.S. for "Nigerians who formulate, implement, or benefit from policies which hinder Nigeria’s transition to democracy" and for those individuals' immediate families.

It issued what diplomat George E. Moose called "a strongly worded statement" urging clemency,[74] and Clinton reportedly telephoned Abacha personally to warn him against carrying out the executions.

[82] Public support for Abacha's international isolation emanated from a "small but vocal" collection of activists, who, between 1993 and 1999, led a sustained and high-profile campaign for Nigerian democratisation, both from inside Nigeria and from exile.

[101] A key issue in bilateral relations during Bush and Obasanjo's first terms was Nigeria's desire for a so-called "democracy dividend", in the form of aid and debt cancellation or reduction.

[106] During Obasanjo's second term, from 2003, he accelerated domestic policy reform and anti-corruption efforts, and thereby secured the agreement of the Paris Club to the cancellation of a significant amount of debt.

As they had during the Carter administration, critics questioned the sincerity of the U.S.'s support for human rights and democracy in Africa, suspecting that it was a cover for more cynical national interests and arguing that Nigeria had become a Western client state, no longer distinguished by its pursuit of an African-led and anti-imperialist foreign policy.

[126] In turn, U.S. officials openly criticised the integrity and capacity of the Nigerian military during House and Senate hearings, and U.S. diplomat Johnnie Carson acknowledged in late 2014 that, "Tensions in the U.S.–Nigeria relationship are probably at their highest level in the past decade.

[134] On May 16, 2023, two U.S. consulate members were killed after gunmen targeted a convoy of U.S. Embassy staffers in southeast Nigeria [135] The 2023 Nigerian presidential election has been seen as "the most wide-open since the country returned to democracy in 1999".

[9][82] One explanation is that the relationship lacks deep ideological or historical sources of tension, allowing the countries to repair disagreements quickly or to maintain lower-level cooperation during periods of high-level diplomatic estrangement.

[140] [141][8] For the U.S., as the Department of State reported to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1995, key among these pragmatic concerns is Nigeria's large consumer market and "vast natural resources and economic potential".

The U.S., formerly Nigeria's main source of wheat imports, was persistent in protesting the ban throughout its lifespan, regarding it as unfair trade practice and threatening retaliatory measures.

[94] A study conducted around that time estimated that Nigerians sent more than $1.3 billion annually to Nigeria in family remittances, a figure that dwarfed the flow of official foreign aid.

[165] Throughout his presidency, Pew Research found that 58-59% of Nigerians maintained confidence in Trump to do the right thing in world affairs,[164] the fourth highest percentage globally after Israel, the Philippines, and Kenya.

[176][147] In 2007, Bush's administration established the Africa Partnership Station, which has been a hub for cooperation against piracy, drug trafficking, oil theft, and border fraud in the Gulf of Guinea.