Somaliland’s Critical Minerals Offer To The US Might Move The Needle In Favor Of Recognition

This proposal could pique Trump 2.0’s attention and ultimately catalyze a regional US pivot.

Bloomberg published an update late last month about Somaliland’s long-running quest for American recognition of its 1991 redeclaration of independence. Apart from offering to host a US military base, which isn’t anything new, it’s now offering a critical minerals deal too. This aligns with the global trend of countries from Pakistan to Ukraine and the Democratic Republic of the Congo leveraging their (in some cases only alleged) reserves of this resource as a means of securing continued US support.

Although Bloomberg noted that the State Department reaffirmed the US’ existing policy of “One Somalia”, the possibility remains that this could change depending on the region’s evolving dynamics. As regards Somalia, The Economist recently published a report about how “[its] state-building project is in tatters” after new terrorist gains and intensified regional centrifugal forces. Trump 2.0 might thus prefer to abandon Somalia in favor of pivoting towards more stable and prosperous Somaliland instead.

Any such decision would risk offending “Major Non-NATO Ally” Egypt, who Trump at first supported over Ethiopia amidst their Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) dispute, given that Somalia relied on Egypt (and Eritrea) all across the last year as a “counterbalance” to Ethiopia. The context was Ethiopia’s (currently unfulfilled) MoU with Somaliland over recognition of its independence and stakes in at least one state company in exchange for a port of its own to diversify from dependence on Djibouti’s.

Ethiopia and Somalia then entered into a rapprochement earlier this year brought about by Turkish mediation, but reports circulated in early July that their talks had since stalled. Later last month, another report emerged that “Egypt Rejected The Price That It Has To Pay For The US Siding Against Ethiopia”, which was allegedly supporting Israel’s Gazan relocation plan and maybe even eventually hosting many, if not all, Gazans too. That created an opening for Ethiopia to engage in creative diplomacy with the US.

This could take the form of not ruling out participation in Israel’s Gazan relocation plan, per a recent Axios report and unlike what Egypt supposedly just did, though conditional on foreign funding of these refugees’ stay and only in the event that others (especially Muslim-majority states) take them in too. By keeping the US’ attention and thus signaling by contrast that it’s a more reliable regional partner than Egypt, Ethiopia might then suggest facilitating a deal with Somaliland, which could take a similar form.

Instead of the US unilaterally recognizing Somaliland, this could be coordinated with Ethiopia, all three’s shared Emirati partner, and India. The latter’s inclusion would satisfy its reported search for a regional naval base while crafting the symbolic optics of both the world’s oldest democracy (the US) and its largest one (India) simultaneously recognizing what would in that scenario be the world’s newest democracy. Ethiopia could sweeten the deal by proposing its own critical minerals deal with the US too.

These benefits – a military base in Somaliland, critical minerals deals with it and Ethiopia, and an Abraham Accords-like multilateral framework for Somaliland with the UAE, India, and then likely others too – could convince Trump to replace Egypt with Ethiopia and Somaliland as the US’ top regional partners. He might already be offended by Egypt outright rejecting the US’ reported Gaza-GERD quid pro quo so it’s possible that he’d be receptive to this deal if Ethiopia and Somaliland play their cards right.