A proposed East Africa alliance would link Somaliland, Ethiopia and South Sudan through Berbera port, trade, energy and regional security, with recognition as a key hurdle
The proposal by foreign-policy analyst Walid Phares envisions Somaliland, Ethiopia and South Sudan building a corridor for trade, energy and regional security, with Berbera serving as its maritime gateway.
A proposed strategic alignment linking Somaliland, Ethiopia and South Sudan is drawing attention to the potential role of Berbera as a regional gateway for trade, energy and security.
The idea was outlined this week by Walid Phares, a foreign-policy analyst, author and strategist who served as a foreign-policy adviser to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Contemporary reporting and PBS identified Phares as one of Trump’s foreign-policy advisers during that campaign.
In a post on X, Phares argued that an independent Somaliland could provide neighboring landlocked countries with access to ports and maritime trade routes while creating the foundation for a broader regional partnership.
“Somaliland independence will be a huge news to East Africa and the free world,” Phares wrote.
His proposed framework would connect Berbera with Addis Ababa and Juba, giving Ethiopia and South Sudan potential access to the Gulf of Aden and international maritime markets through Somaliland.
The proposal is ambitious, but it reflects a strategic reality that has become increasingly important across the Horn of Africa: access to ports is not merely an economic question. It is also a matter of national security, energy security and geopolitical influence.
Berbera at the center
Phares sees Somaliland’s coastline as the foundation for a broader East African corridor.
“The soon to be sovereign country will have a coast and ports to serve two more countries: Ethiopia and South Sudan,” he wrote.
For Ethiopia, which is landlocked, alternative access to the sea has become a major strategic priority. Berbera offers a potential maritime route in addition to Ethiopia’s longstanding dependence on Djibouti.
Phares also proposed a future energy corridor in which South Sudanese oil could move through Ethiopia toward Somaliland.
“South Sudan oil will be able to flow via pipelines via Ethiopia to Somaliland,” he wrote.
Such a project would require substantial investment, political agreements and long-term security arrangements. It would also face significant engineering, financing and cross-border regulatory challenges.
But the strategic logic is clear: a functioning corridor from Juba through Ethiopia to Berbera could connect South Sudan’s energy resources to a major maritime outlet while giving Ethiopia additional commercial options.
For Somaliland, the benefits would extend beyond port revenues. A deeper economic relationship with two neighboring states could strengthen Berbera’s position as a regional logistics hub and reinforce Hargeisa’s argument that Somaliland can provide strategic value beyond its own territory.
From economic corridor to security architecture
Phares’s proposal goes further, envisioning an institutionalized security relationship among the three countries.
“It is expected that the three East African countries could establish a security agreement for collective defense and counter terrorism partnerships between Berbera, Addis Abbeba and Juba,” he wrote.
He suggested that Israel, the United Arab Emirates and the United States could provide support to such an arrangement.
The proposal comes against a backdrop of intensifying strategic competition around the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, where maritime security, trade routes and regional alliances increasingly intersect.
Phares framed the proposal not simply as a geopolitical calculation but as part of a broader argument for self-determination and economic integration.
“The people of Somaliland deserves its sovereignty and freedom,” he wrote. “The nations of East Africa deserves access to trade routes and the whole world needs peace and prosperity.”
He added that other communities across Africa also deserved freedom.
Recognition remains the critical variable
The proposal’s supporters see one issue as fundamental: Somaliland’s unresolved international status.
Siyad Madey, a Nairobi-based lawyer and policy analyst who has spent more than two decades working across East Africa and the Horn of Africa, said the underlying framework was already taking shape.
“Berbera already anchors this in practice,” Madey wrote in response to Phares, pointing to Ethiopia’s relationship with DP World and what he described as Ethiopia’s naval ambitions.
“The missing piece is formal recognition,” he added. “Once that lands, South Sudan’s pipeline math and the collective defense architecture become far easier to finance and defend politically.”
That assessment captures the central challenge.
Somaliland restored independence from Somalia in 1991 and has since developed its own political and security institutions, but its disputed status continues to complicate major international agreements involving sovereign infrastructure, defense and energy.
Recognition would not automatically produce an East African alliance. But it could alter the legal and diplomatic environment in which governments and investors assess long-term projects involving Somaliland.
A vision welcomed by Somaliland supporters
Ahmed Abdillahi, a political thinker and chairman of the Waddani Party of Minnesota, welcomed Phares’s proposal, describing Somaliland as a potential strategic bridge between the Horn of Africa’s major economies.
“As an American-Somalilander, I truly appreciate your understanding of Somaliland’s potential—not only as a sovereign nation, but as a strategic gateway capable of connecting Somaliland, Ethiopia and South Sudan through trade, energy, ports and regional security,” Abdillahi wrote.
He argued that cooperation among Berbera, Addis Ababa and Juba deserved serious attention because of its potential implications for Red Sea security, counterterrorism and economic development.
Abdillahi also praised Phares for continuing to raise Somaliland’s strategic role in international discussions, calling him “a friend of Somaliland and its people.”
The enthusiasm reflects a broader shift in how Somaliland advocates frame the independence question.
Rather than presenting sovereignty solely as an issue of history, identity and self-determination, they increasingly emphasize Somaliland’s potential contribution to regional infrastructure and security.
The obstacles are substantial
Turning the proposal into reality would require more than political statements.
A pipeline linking South Sudanese oil fields to Berbera would have to cross Ethiopia and traverse challenging terrain. It would require billions of dollars in capital, reliable security and agreements capable of surviving political transitions in three countries.
A collective-defense arrangement would be even more complicated.
Ethiopia already participates in multiple regional security frameworks and maintains sensitive relationships with neighboring states. South Sudan faces its own political and security challenges. Somaliland’s relationship with Somalia remains unresolved.
Any alliance involving Berbera would therefore have to navigate competing regional interests as well as the concerns of international powers with military and commercial stakes in the Red Sea.
There is also a fundamental question over whether Ethiopia and South Sudan would be prepared to place their strategic interests within a framework centered on a territory whose sovereignty remains contested.
For Somaliland, however, the potential rewards are considerable.
A successful Berbera corridor could generate trade, investment and infrastructure while giving Somaliland greater geopolitical relevance. It could also strengthen the argument that recognition would serve not only Somaliland’s interests but those of a wider East African economic and security system.
Berbera’s bigger bet
The proposed alliance remains an idea rather than an established institution. Yet it illustrates the increasingly important role that Berbera could play in the strategic geography of the Horn of Africa.
If the port becomes a major outlet for Ethiopian commerce and eventually South Sudanese energy exports, its importance would extend well beyond Somaliland’s borders.
That is the larger wager behind the proposed Berbera-Addis Ababa-Juba axis: that geography can become a form of diplomacy.
For Somaliland, recognition remains the central objective. For Ethiopia, diversified access to the sea remains a strategic imperative. For South Sudan, reliable export infrastructure could transform the economics of its oil sector.
Whether those interests can be aligned will depend on politics as much as geography.
But Phares’s proposal puts a striking possibility on the table: an East African corridor in which Berbera serves as the maritime gateway, Addis Ababa as the economic and logistical bridge, and Juba as a source of energy — with regional security tying the three together.
For now, it is a vision. The challenge is turning it into an architecture that governments, investors and international partners are willing to recognize, finance and defend.
