American policy toward Somaliland rests on a fiction. Washington treats the territory as if Mogadishu might one day govern it, even though Somaliland has run its own institutions since 1991. President Donald Trump can replace that fiction with a practical partnership by recognizing a state that Somalilanders have already built.
The timing is unusually clear. This year marks 35 years since Somaliland restored its sovereignty. The number also reaches back to June 1960, when Somaliland says 35 countries recognized its brief independence before it entered a union with Somalia. Israel’s recognition in December 2025 has now moved the question from theory to precedent.
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Somaliland’s legal claim is stronger than the word secession suggests. A British Order in Council ended the protectorate and established an independent Somaliland before the Somali Republic existed. The African Union’s 2005 fact-finding mission recorded that the subsequent union was never ratified and called Somaliland’s case historically unique and self-justified. Somaliland, therefore, claims restoration within its inherited colonial boundary, not the invention of a new ethnic frontier.
Political reality reinforces the legal case. Somaliland has a permanent population, a government, a defined territorial claim, and the capacity to conduct foreign relations. It collects taxes, runs courts, maintains police and coast guard services, and operates a currency and public administration. Mogadishu appoints none of these institutions and controls none of them.
Its democratic record is also exceptional for the region. Freedom House raised Somaliland’s score in 2025. An opposition candidate won the 2024 presidential election, the incumbent accepted defeat and institutions survived the transfer. Recognition would reward demonstrated pluralism rather than another promise of future reform.
American commercial and security interests point in the same direction. The World Bank ranked Berbera first among assessed container ports in Sub-Saharan Africa for operational efficiency. Its port and airfield sit near Bab al Mandab, where attacks on shipping affect freight, insurance, energy, and the Suez route. Berbera could give the United States strategic depth beside existing arrangements in Djibouti without displacing facilities that already work.
Somaliland brings an operating maritime record to that location. United Nations reporting has documented coast guard action against piracy, trafficking, and illegal fishing, including cooperation with international naval forces. Washington would be strengthening a local service that already patrols its waters, not inventing another security institution from the ground up.
Somaliland has also chosen its partners. It established mutual representative offices with Taiwan in 2020 and later signed a coast guard cooperation agreement. It has cultivated relations with the United States, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates while retaining its African and Muslim identity. That is alignment with agency, not client politics.
Recognition would not automatically create a military base or settle every territorial dispute. Those questions would remain subject to negotiation and peaceful diplomacy. It would, however, establish the legal relationship needed for durable security, investment, and maritime cooperation.
The constitutional decision belongs to the president. The Supreme Court has held that the president possesses exclusive authority to recognize foreign sovereigns. Congress would retain its powers over funding, ambassadors, and the terms of any later partnership.
TRUMP SHOULD RECOGNIZE SOMALILAND. OUR SECURITY DEPENDS ON IT
Somaliland is not asking America to invade, occupy, or construct a government. Its people have already paid for institutions, elections, security, and compromise. Trump would not be gambling on whether a new state can survive. He would be recognizing one that has already passed a 35-year test.
America would not be building another state. It would finally acknowledge the one standing in front of it.
Abdi Daud is a Melbourne-based Somaliland foreign affairs writer and a Cultural Ambassador for the Association of Somaliland Community in Australia.
