Liberia is a small West African country of about 4.7 million people. Its government continues to pursue a transition toward a national policy agenda focused on alleviation of poverty, which is widespread, long-term growth and development, and the reconstruction of infrastructure and public service institutions devastated by two civil wars (1989-1997 and 1999-2003). The country is also continuing to overcome the economic effects of a devastating outbreak of the contagious and often fatal Ebola Virus Disease (2014-2016), which spurred a sharp decrease in economic growth rates and a 1.6% contraction of the economy in 2016. Liberia, a constitutional republic with a bicameral national legislature, recently completed a political transition following presidential and House of Representatives elections in October 2017 and a subsequent presidential runoff election. The latter was won by George Weah, of the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC). Weah, a former internationally famed professional soccer player, was inaugurated on January 22, 2018, becoming Liberia's 25 th president and its second post-war head of state. He succeeded two-term president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who was term-limited. The election was of particular local political significance given Liberia's history of presidential dominance and its winner-take-all political culture and history of undemocratic governmental transitions—and as it brought about Liberia's first electoral transfer of state executive power since 1944. At stake in the election were the substantial reforms and development successes that Liberia has achieved since 2003, along with the many economic, social, and governance challenges—including corruption and accountability for war-time human rights violations—that the country continues to face. Also at issue was the preservation of gains resulting from more than $5 billion dollars in U.S. post-war investments in development, security, and humanitarian welfare, and considerable aid from other donors. Such support—along with significant in-flows of mostly commodity-focused foreign investment—helped contribute to a rapid expansion of Liberia's economy prior to the Ebola outbreak, which spurred a sharp decrease in economic growth rates and a 1.6% contraction of the economy in 2016. The Trump Administration issued a statement lauding "the people of Liberia on the successful conclusion of the presidential runoff election" of 2017, calling the electoral process "a major milestone for Liberia's democracy," and congratulating Weah on his victory. It commended Liberia's National Elections Commission (NEC) "for administering an orderly election process" and other key institutions that had played key roles in ensuring a "peaceful and transparent contest." It also stated that the "United States is deeply committed to our longstanding relationship with Liberia and its people" and would "continue to support the success of this historic democratic transition and the peace and prosperity of Liberia." The United States has had a nearly 200-year bilateral relationship with Liberia and played a formative role in its creation. In 1822, an entity called the American Colonization Society began an effort to resettle free African Americans and former U.S. slaves in an area then-known as the Pepper Coast, located in modern coastal Liberia. In 1847, these settlers issued a declaration of independence and established the modern Liberian republic. Known as Americo-Liberians, the settler population held a near monopoly on state power until a coup d'état in 1980 led by a junior military officer of indigenous descent. The United States helped mediate an end to both of Liberia's civil wars, provided substantial aid to help meet wartime humanitarian needs, and supported post-conflict stabilization efforts. In 2003, as then-President Charles Taylor clung to power amid a rebel assault on the capital, Monrovia, then-President George W. Bush ordered a limited U.S. military intervention to signal U.S. support for consolidating a ceasefire and a related accord ending the war known as the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). The CPA was facilitated by departure into exile in Nigeria of Taylor, a former armed faction leader who had been elected president in 1997 after a peace accord ending the country's first civil war. The United States then provided logistical and financial support to a West African regional intervention force, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Mission in Liberia (ECOMIL), which deployed to Liberia in September 2003. Most of its personnel were integrated into a larger follow-on United Nations (U.N.) peacekeeping operation, the U.N. Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), which was established weeks later. UNMIL completed its mandate on March 30, 2018. The United States funded roughly a quarter of the costs of UNMIL, although the exact percentage has varied by year. U.S. relations with the Sirleaf administration were warm from the start of her tenure in 2006, due largely to her experience as an international development professional, banker, and businessperson, and her frequent positive interactions with U.S. officials. In 2013, the Obama Administration launched a U.S.-Liberia Partnership Dialogue centering mostly on bilateral development cooperation. The most recent dialogue under this process was held in January 2017. Congress has helped shape U.S. relations with Liberia, notably through the appropriations process and periodic hearings focused on elections, Ebola, and other developments in the country, as well as through Member visits to Liberia. The 2017 elections and future prospects for Liberia were the subject of a September 2017 U.S. House of Representatives hearing, as well as two resolutions calling for free, fair, and peaceful elections in October 2017. Since 2006, Congress has fostered relations through a House Democracy Partnership (HDP) program with the Liberian legislature. Liberian immigration to the United States, while limited, has also drawn congressional attention and engagement. Bilateral cooperation prior to and since the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic has centered on development assistance and military reform. The focus of U.S. development programs, administered primarily by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department, has ranged from the infrastructure sector, with a priority on boosting access to electricity and road maintenance, to health, education, agriculture, and economic growth activities. Democracy and good governance efforts—supporting elections administration, anti-corruption programs, and civil service capacity-building, legislative capacity-building, extractive industry oversight, and land rights—have been another key priority. A State Department program also supported the post-war disbandment of the Liberia's military and the recruitment, establishment, and training, aided by the Department of Defense, of a new national military, including a coast guard. Additionally, the United States has helped Liberia build its criminal justice sector and supported transitional justice efforts. Within the United States, U.S. federal law enforcement agencies have also occasionally arrested and prosecuted alleged perpetrators of Liberian civil war human rights abuses, generally using immigration perjury charges as a vehicle for prosecution (see Liberia's Civil Wars: Taylor and Judicial Responses to Wartime Rights Abuses below). Most nonhealth-related U.S. assistance activities were temporarily supplanted during the Ebola epidemic by large amounts of emergency U.S. assistance targeted toward halting and recovering from the outbreak. Assistance programs subsequently transitioned back toward pre-epidemic goals, along with continued post-Ebola health system strengthening. In 2015, as the epidemic was ending, Liberia also entered into a Compact with the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). The five-year, $257 million, set of programs centers on electrical power generation and related technical and regulatory capacity-building and enhanced national road maintenance. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a U.S.-educated former government administrator, banker, and U.N. Development Program official, became president after winning a runoff election against Weah in 2005, in Liberia's first post-war general elections. The first woman to be elected president of an African country, she took office in early 2006, assuming power from the unelected National Transitional Government of Liberia (NTGL). During her first term she focused on transitioning Liberia from dependence on immediate post-war recovery and humanitarian assistance toward a longer-term development agenda. Although poverty has remained widespread and public services and infrastructure are limited, Sirleaf is widely regarded as having earned the confidence of foreign aid donors, leading to large, sustained inflows of assistance for the war-ravaged country. This aid financed the rehabilitation of infrastructure and state institutional capacity-building, alongside a wide range of other development and stabilization efforts. It was supplemented by rising state revenues during her tenure: the national budget grew from $80 million in 2006 to $516 million by the end of her first term. Liberia also established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission during her tenure. Many of its recommendations were controversial and were only partially implemented. One of its proposals called for Sirleaf and other figures—most alleged leaders or key supporters of armed civil war factions—to be banned from public leadership roles. The Sirleaf administration also received considerable support and oversight through the USAID-administered Governance and Economic Management Program (GEMAP, 2005-2010). It aimed to improve state fiscal management and contract capacities and counter administrative corruption, and supported diverse economic governance and judicial capacity-building efforts. Its use of contract-based foreign managers to supervise fiscal flows of key public sector revenue-earning entities, however, drew local sovereignty-focused criticisms. A similar follow-on effort, the Governance and Economic Management Support (GEMS) program, ended in 2016. Sirleaf was reelected in 2011 in a highly contentious runoff against Winston Tubman of the Congress for Democratic Change party, whose vice presidential running-mate was Weah.