This article, “Recognizing Somaliland Would Be Trump’s Ultimate Response to Ilhan Omar,” argues that then-President Trump recognizing Somaliland’s independence would be a strategic move against Somali corruption, a response to Ilhan Omar’s policies, and beneficial for U.S. national security.
The author, Michael Rubin, suggests that Somaliland, unlike Somalia, has built a functional economy without relying on international aid and accuses Omar of favoring Somalia due to clan affiliation, even to the point of siding with China’s interests in the region.
By recognizing Somaliland, Trump could counter Omar’s influence and support a more stable and economically viable region, aligning with U.S. interests.
The author highlights Somaliland’s efforts to establish a business climate despite limited resources, contrasting it with Somalia’s corruption and dependence on foreign aid.
The complete piece is as follows:
Recognizing Somaliland Would Be Trump’s Ultimate Response to Ilhan Omar
Trump Criticized the Widespread Somali Fraud Scheme Affecting Minnesota’s Social Services, but Somali Culture Is Not Somaliland’s
By Michael Rubin
President Donald Trump will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on December 29, 2025, but the U.S. president appears reticent about recognizing Somaliland, as Israel did on December 26.
Trump should reconsider. For reasons of U.S. national security, but also as he battles rampant Somali corruption in Minnesota and Rep. Ilhan Omar’s efforts to undermine his own policies on assistance and immigration, he could make no better response than to recognize Somaliland independence.
Transparency International consistently ranks Somalia as among the world’s most corrupt countries.
The United States recognized Somaliland’s independence briefly in 1960, before the country merged with Italian Somaliland to form what became Somalia. That marriage dissolved in 1991, though like a stalking ex-spouse, Mogadishu has since refused to let Somaliland go. Still, there is plenty of precedent of unions and confederations dissolving. The Soviet Union dissolved. So, too, did Yugoslavia.
Eritrea left Ethiopia and South Sudan broke away from Sudan. Nor does dissolution and secession make violence inevitable. Egypt and Syria formed the United Arab Republic between 1958 and 1971, but then reverted to distinct, sovereign states. The same was true with Senegal and Gambia, whose Senegambia Confederation between 1982 and 1989 never worked out.
This is why the African Union’s opposition to Somaliland’s independence is so hypocritical. Frankly, so are many Arab states. Qatar supports Somalia, largely due to its Islamist orientation, but Qatar itself was a secessionist state that peeled away from Bahrain more than a century ago.
While Trump and his supporters criticize the widespread Somali fraud campaign that fleeced Minnesota’s social safety net, he should not conflate Somali culture with Somaliland’s. Transparency International consistently ranks Somalia as among the world’s most corrupt countries. Tens of billions of dollars of U.S. support have worsened Somalia’s situation by fanning dysfunctional corruption and cultivating a culture of entitlement.
Somaliland is the opposite: Cut off from international aid, it had to raise every dollar internally from customs revenue and account for each allocation simply because its resources were so limited. Rather than receive welfare, Somaliland built an economic base and thriving business climate from the ashes of Somali leader Mohamed Siad Barre’s genocidal campaign against the Isaaq clan. It is not the Singapore of Africa yet, but it has laid the groundwork.
Trump harbors special animus for Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). “She would like to make the government of our country just like the country from where she came: Somalia,” he declared in 2020.
Omar proved herself provincial and unable to shed her own clan mentality. As she bashed the United States, she lionized Somalia.
There is something to Trump’s criticism. Clan and expediency shape Somalia’s political orientations. While the U.S. press celebrated Omar as a trailblazer, Somalis also celebrated her rise. While even Somalis raise eyebrows at her alleged marriage to her brother, they grew disappointed that she did not use her seat on the Africa subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to give broader U.S. attention to the Horn of Africa and the effort to set Somalia right.
Instead, Omar proved herself provincial and unable to shed her own clan mentality. As she bashed the United States, she lionized Somalia. Within Somalia itself, she showed herself a fierce clan partisan, seeking to use her government position to favor Puntland in its aggression against Somaliland. In effect, when China’s proxy Somali forces invaded Somaliland, she sided with Beijing.
If Trump really wants to push back on Omar, he should stop embracing the Somali policies she so fiercely advocates. Rather, seeing that Omar and her compatriots on the progressive squad favor Mogadishu, and by extension its Islamist and Chinese Communist backers, he should side with Somaliland. Not only could he shut the door on Omar’s clan agenda and worldview, but he could also make America great again in the process.
Published originally on December 28, 2025.
About the Author:
Dr. Michael Rubin
Michael Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum. A former Pentagon official, Dr. Rubin has lived in post-revolution Iran, Yemen, and both pre-and postwar Iraq. He also spent time with the Taliban before 9/11. For more than a decade, he taught classes at sea about the Horn of Africa and Middle East conflicts, culture, and terrorism, to deployed US Navy and Marine units. Dr. Rubin is the author, coauthor, and coeditor of several books exploring diplomacy, Iranian history, Arab culture, Kurdish studies, and Shi’ite politics. He can be reached at X (formerly Twitter) @mrubin1971
