Why Donald Trump Should Visit Somaliland: A Bold Move in Africa – The U.S. presidency is as much about symbolism as power. Foreign leaders, diplomats, and analysts carefully track the order of phone calls and where the president goes first. Most often, the president’s first overseas trip is to Great Britain, Canada, or Mexico. Since World War II, the only exceptions have been Dwight D. Eisenhower who visited Korea in December 1952, a symbolic move given the ongoing Korean War; Harry Truman and Richard Nixon, who stopped in Belgium respectively on their way to Germany for the Potsdam Conference and the United Kingdom to meet the Queen; and Donald Trump who, in his first term, chose to highlight the U.S. partnership with Saudi Arabia.

Africa is seldom a priority for any president. For all his rhetoric about the importance of Africa, President Joe Biden visited sub-Saharan Africa for the first time only in December 2024, just weeks before he left office. Biden was not alone in neglecting the continent. Like Biden, George H.W. Bush visited the continent only in his last days, meeting with U.S. military personnel in January 1993, less than three weeks before he left office. Jimmy Carter visited Egypt frequently against the backdrop of the Camp David Accords but only took one trip to sub-Saharan Africa—the first by any U.S. president. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush each made two trips to sub-Saharan Africa over eight years, and Barack Obama made four trips to sub-Saharan Africa. Ronald Reagan never visited Africa as president, and Donald Trump skipped the continent in his first term.

As Trump makes countering the People’s Republic of China the focal point of his second-term foreign policy agenda, he can no longer afford to ignore Africa. Not only should he make a visit, but he should also break diplomatic china by visiting Somaliland, a country that the United States does not even recognize.

During Trump’s first term, the White House praised Taiwan for its partnership with Somaliland. Somaliland-Taiwan ties have only deepened since then. Not only has Somaliland rebuffed both Beijing’s threats and attempts at bribery, but its government has also deepened its ties with Taiwan in response.

For Trump, Somaliland should be a model for other reasons: The country suffered ruin in the late 1980s at the hands of Somali dictator Siad Barre. While the international community and the United States pumped tens of billions of dollars into Somalia—all of which successive Somali governments embezzled, squandered, or diverted to China—Somaliland received next to nothing due to its lack of recognition. Today, Somaliland thrives not because it is a charity case but rather because of the ingenuity of the Somaliland people as well as its embrace of business and the free market. What once was an economy based on livestock now boasts multibillion-dollar businesses and a deepwater port that the World Bank ranks as the top in sub-Saharan Africa.

Add into the mix that Somaliland, on its own, has denied it territory to terrorists and weapons smugglers, rejecting the immoral strategy used by other states, from Egypt to Somalia to Pakistan, to extort endless security assistance by never actually defeating the Islamic State and Al Qaeda affiliates. Its strength and denial of space to Al Shabaab and other malign actors is an asset to U.S. national security.

The Somaliland diaspora in the United States, concentrated in Columbus, Seattle, Atlanta, and Washington, DC, contributes disproportionately to the U.S. economy. Somalilanders hold important leadership positions in corporations like Starbucks, in academe, and in medicine. Somaliland’s outgoing foreign minister Essa Kayd was chief of Neurophysiology at Brigham Women’s Hospital in Boston. In short, Somaliland is perhaps the top African country that demonstrates the self-sufficiency and accountability that Trump preaches.

The Berbera Airport was once an emergency landing strip for NASA’s space shuttle program; it could easily accommodate Air Force One. Should Trump land there, he would be greeted with adulation on par with George H.W. Bush reception in Kuwait after that country’s liberation. Even Trump’s most ardent critics in Washington would have difficulty dismissing those scenes and images.

Visiting Somaliland—just a 90-minute hop in Air Force One from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, rumored to be Trump’s first visit of his second term—would be a shot across the bow to Beijing, the U.S. aid community, and those in the State Department who have for too long put Mogadishu’s feelings above U.S. national interests. It really is an opportunity almost too good for Trump’s team to pass up.

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. The author’s views are his own.