Did Somalia Beat Trump To A Deal With Ethiopia? – OpEd
On 11 December 2024, the Somali government headed by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud agreed to the “Ankara Declaration” with the Ethiopian government of President Ahmed Abiy following negotiations hosted by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Erdogan of Turkiye.
Under the agreement, the two leaders committed themselves to respecting their country’s respective sovereignty, unity, independence and territorial integrity. The two also agreed to conclude “mutually advantageous commercial arrangements through bilateral agreements, including contract, lease, and similar modalities, which will allow the Federal Republic of Ethiopia to enjoy reliable, secure, and sustainable access to and from the sea, under the sovereign authority of the Federal Republic of Somalia.”
Somalia’s decision to grant Ethiopia access to port facilities appears to be a response to the election of Donald Trump to a second term as president of the United States and its concern that the incoming administration would recognize the sovereignty of Somaliland, the self-declared state in northern Somalia. Somaliland signed a memorandum of understanding with Ethiopia on 1 January 2024 that promised to grant commercial and military port facilities to Ethiopia on its coast in exchange for a promise that Ethiopia would recognize its declaration of independence from Somalia and its sovereignty. Somalia appears to be attempting to pre-empt any decision by the new American administration to recognize Somaliland’s sovereignty.
The proposal to recognize Somaliland has strong support from a variety of Trump supporters and advisors. The Project 2025 report, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, prepared by a number of conservative organizations under the leadership of the Heritage Foundation as a blueprint for the second Trump administration and released in April 2023, calls for American “recognition of Somaliland statehood as a hedge against the US’s deteriorating position in Djibouti.” Several people involved in writing and promoting the report have already been nominated for positions in the incoming administration, including Stephen Miller (Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy at the White House) and John Ratcliffe (Director of the CIA).
The recognition of Somaliland has also been promoted by prominent foreign policy advisors who served in Trump’s first administration. J. Peter Pham, Trump’s Special Envoy to the Sahel region and to the Great Lakes region, declared that Somaliland has “demonstrated its attractiveness as a partner for the United States and other countries.”
Tibor Nagy, the former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, said there will be “more sympathy for places like Somaliland” in Trump’s second term in office, because “Somaliland stands on its own feet, it’s very pro-West, very free market oriented and it takes care of the security of its own territory and it holds regular elections.”
According to Nagy, the idea that Somaliland is part of Somalia is a “fiction” and “nonsense for a variety of reasons.” He goes on to say that “maybe, just maybe, if a new administration wins our next Presidential elections, Somaliland’s dream of being a fully recognized member of the community of nations will become reality.” And Michael Rubin, senior fellow at the influential American Enterprise Institute, published an article on 3 January 2024 entitled, “US Should Endorse Somaliland’s Independence,” explicitly calling for American recognition.
But now President Abiy appears to have achieved his objective without having to recognize Somaliland or risk a confrontation with Somalia, which has gained the military backing of Egypt and Eritrea. These two countries have their own disputes with the Ethiopian regime and have pledged to support Somalia if the dispute leads to war. The Ethiopian leader is unlikely to welcome a clumsy intervention by American ideologues that will upset his plans and destabilize the region. President Trump would be well advised to ignore the Somaliland lobbyists and stay out of the Horn of Africa.