American troops will leave Iraq on September 30th.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi announced during a meeting with Donald Trump in Washington that US forces would completely withdraw from Iraq by September 30. The withdrawal is accompanied by a proposed economic partnership focused on oil.

Ali al-Zaidi put a specific date on the table during his visit to the White House: September 30th. On that day, according to the Iraqi Prime Minister, the last American soldiers deployed in his country will have left. "American forces will leave, and American companies will enter," he declared, thus summarizing the logic of the agreement currently being negotiated with Washington.

Donald Trump echoed this sentiment, stating that a military presence was no longer necessary. "We don't think we need the military there," he said from the Oval Office. Approximately 2,500 American troops were still stationed in Iraq in recent months, primarily for operations against the Islamic State, with positions in Erbil in the Kurdish region, near Baghdad airport, and in the capital's Green Zone.

The al-Zaidi government has linked this withdrawal to one condition: the disarmament of pro-Iranian militias operating on Iraqi soil. "After September 30, we will not allow any entity to bear arms outside the state," the Prime Minister stated.

Beyond the military aspect, the visit to Washington was primarily aimed at attracting American investment in Iraq's oil, gas, and energy sectors. Trump touted Iraq's "tremendous potential" thanks to its hydrocarbon reserves. "We're going to make a lot of deals, create a lot of jobs in both countries, and extract a lot of oil," he promised, without specifying the details.

Two Iraqi officials indicated that Iraq, the Chevron group, TI Capital and the Qatari company UCC were preparing to sign an agreement for the construction of an oil pipeline with a capacity of two million barrels per day, linking Basra to Haditha, then extending to ports in Turkey and Syria.