United States President Donald Trump on Sunday renewed his threat of a military operation in Nigeria over what he described as the continued killings of Christians, a day after the Nigerian presidency suggested talks to address his concerns.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Mr. Trump was asked whether he was considering deploying American troops on the ground in Nigeria or ordering air strikes. He replied, “Could be, I mean, a lot of things — I envisage a lot of things.”

“They’re killing the Christians and killing them in very large numbers. We’re not going to allow that to happen,” he added.

In a post on his Truth Social platform on Saturday, Mr. Trump claimed he had asked the Pentagon to prepare a potential plan of attack against Nigeria. This came a day after he warned that Christianity was “facing an existential threat” in Africa’s most populous country.

Mr. Trump wrote that if Nigeria fails to halt the killings, “the United States will attack, and it will be fast, vicious, and sweet — just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians.”

Reacting on Sunday, presidential spokesman Mr. Daniel Bwala told AFP that Nigeria remained a strategic partner of the United States in the global fight against terrorism.

“Nigeria welcomes US support to fight terrorism as long as it respects our territorial integrity,” he said. “We do not see Mr. Trump’s social media post in the literal sense. We know that Donald Trump has his own style of communication.”

Mr. Bwala suggested that the former president’s remarks could be aimed at “forcing a sit-down between the two leaders so they can iron out a common front to combat insecurity.”

Earlier, in a post on X (formerly Twitter), Mr. Bwala hinted that a meeting between President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Mr. Trump could take place soon.

“As for the differences regarding whether terrorists in Nigeria target only Christians, or in fact all faiths and no faiths, such issues — if they exist — would be discussed and resolved by the two leaders when they meet in the coming days, either at the State House or the White House,” he wrote.

Mr. Bwala, speaking by phone from Washington, declined to provide details of any potential meeting.

On Friday, Mr. Trump had posted that “thousands of Christians are being killed, and Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter.”

However, the Nigerian government has rejected claims that Christians are being specifically targeted by jihadist groups more than adherents of other faiths.

“The characterisation of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality,” President Tinubu said in a social media post on Saturday.