Somaliland Will Name an Airport for Trump, Open Its Port and Offer Its Minerals; It Wants One Thing Back

Somaliland’s president has offered to put Donald Trump’s name on an airport.Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, commonly known by his nickname Irro, has floated renaming Berbera International Airport. The idea came after weeks of lobbying at Washington and New York to win what his government has sought for decades: formal recognition from the United States. Berbera, a port city on the Gulf of Aden, has a runway built by the Soviet Union in the 1970s that stretches more than 4,000 meters, among the longest in Africa. So far, no agreement has been reached on the airport, on military access, or on recognition of the territory that declared its independence from Somalia in 1991.Mr. Abdirahman arrived in the United States on September 5 and planned to stay the month. He appeared at the Hudson Institute on September 14 and met Senator Ted Cruz of Texas on Capitol Hill five days, later according to the Somaliland presidency. He then traveled to New York for the UN General Assembly, where he met Israel’s ambassador to the world body.The offer has grown more specific. Mr. Abdirahman said in an interview last month that Somaliland could open its port and minerals to American investors and would not rule out a future base agreement, calling military access for the United States, Israel or others a matter for negotiation. He has also floated a Trump Tower, a skyscraper bearing the president’s real estate brand, at Hargeisa, the capital.Washington’s official position has not moved. In a June report to Congress, the State Department said Somaliland is still part of the Federal Republic of Somalia, while adding that the United States maintains a positive relationship with Hargeisa and is considering further engagement.Still, the delegation left New York encouraged.“On recognition, there is a growing willingness in Washington to assess Somaliland based on today’s geopolitical realities and security and commercial interests rather than outdated diplomatic conventions,” Somaliland’s representative to Washington, Bashir Goth, tells The New York Sun.What Washington Has Said So FarSomaliland borders Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Somalia’s Puntland region. No U.N. member state had recognized it until Israel did so in December 2025. Supporters note that Somaliland holds one-person, one-vote elections, issues its own currency, and fields its own security forces. American military officials also meet with them regularly, although the United States has no base there. Somalia’s federal government, meanwhile, has struggled to assert control beyond Mogadishu.“Somaliland has governed itself, held free and fair elections and maintained security along its coastline,” Mr. Goth tells the Sun.Despite all this, the American hesitation predates any one administration.“The common theme is that Hargeisa hasn’t been able to convince the U.S. there is a compelling need to recognize it,” a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, Joshua Meservey, tells the Sun.Advocates say Berbera’s location on the Gulf of Aden makes it a natural place from which to watch the Houthis and Iran-backed forces. Via GoogleWhat may change that calculus is the shifting security situation in the Red Sea. The growing Houthi threat has raised the value of bases near the Bab el-Mandeb strait, and “this makes Somaliland more tempting as a partner to the U.S.,” a professor of international relations at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Stig Jarle Hansen, tells the Sun.Mr. Trump told reporters in August 2025 that his administration was looking into recognition, but Israel moved first, on December 26. The next day, Mr. Trump said the United States would not immediately follow and asked whether anyone really knew what Somaliland is.Israel has since pressed ahead. Its foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, visited Hargeisa in January, and Somaliland says it intends to join the Abraham Accords. Mr. Cruz, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Africa, has written to Mr. Trump urging recognition, and a House bill, H.R. 3992, would recognize the territory by statute.Somaliland holds a strong hand, according to some analysts.“The U.S. could more or less name its price for recognition,” a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and former coordinator of the United Nations Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team, Edmund Fitton-Brown, tells the Sun.Beijing’s Shadow Over the Gulf of AdenCommunist China sits at the center of the recognition debate, even though Somaliland has kept its distance from Beijing. After Mr. Abdirahman defended his government’s close ties with Taiwan during the Hudson appearance, the Chinese Embassy in Somalia condemned his remarks and warned of serious consequences, according to a summary of its statement.“Somaliland has demonstrated that it is prepared to stand by its like-minded partners even when doing so carries a cost,” Mr. Goth says.Beijing’s only formally acknowledged overseas military base is at Djibouti, the only country that simultaneously hosts a Chinese and an American military base, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies reported September 17 that Beijing has upgraded it. Advocates say Berbera’s location on the Gulf of Aden makes it a natural place from which to watch the Houthis and Iran-backed forces.“Berbera’s capabilities and location make it a valuable platform for supporting maritime security in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden,” Mr. Goth says.How much that should weigh divides analysts.“It is a significant factor,” Mr. Meservey tells the Sun. “Beijing keeps adding capabilities to the base it has built [at Djibouti] so that it now dwarfs the U.S.’s Camp Lemonnier,” located less than 10 miles away.Asked how much China’s growing presence should factor into the decision, one analyst is dismissive.“Frankly, not much,” an Africa analyst and political and business risk consultant, Cameron Hudson, tells the Sun. “But we also have options for basing in multiple other locations in the region. Somaliland is not unique in that perspective.”The Case Against Saying YesSomalia’s federal government rejects Somaliland’s claim to sovereignty and considers Berbera and the coastline to be part of Somalia. Mogadishu tried to head off recognition in March 2025 by offering the United States control of ports it does not actually control.Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Egypt and Somalia condemned Israel’s recognition in December, and the African Union’s Peace and Security Council urged Israel in January to revoke it. Somaliland supporters rallied near U.N. headquarters on September 23, joined by the speaker of its House of Representatives and diaspora from the United States and Canada, as lawmakers at Hargeisa asked the UN to consider admission.“Somaliland is not creating new borders; it reclaims its borders of the former British Somaliland protectorate, which became independent in 1960 before entering a voluntary union with Somalia,” Mr. Goth says.Mr. Meservey warns that recognition could cost Washington a counterterrorism partner.“Mogadishu’s fury would lead it, in what would be an all-time self-defeating move, to cut off counterterrorism cooperation with the U.S.,” he says.Inside the administration, the debate may hinge less on merit than on cost. Mr. Hansen believes pragmatists who think Washington can get what it wants without recognizing Somaliland hold the upper hand, and Mr. Fitton-Brown calls the argument “finely balanced.”“I think the administration does not currently calculate that the benefits of recognizing outweigh the potential costs,” he says.The State Department’s June position stands, and Israel is still the only UN member state to have recognized Somaliland. Whether that holds may depend less on strategy than on temperament, in Mr. Hudson’s view of the administration.“They tend to make ad hoc decisions in the moment without properly weighing the strategic consequences of their actions, only the near-term tactical gains,” he says.

Somaliland Will Name an Airport for Trump, Open Its Port and Offer Its Minerals; It Wants One Thing Back

Somaliland Will Name an Airport for Trump, Open Its Port and Offer Its Minerals; It Wants One Thing Back

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