The uncertain attendance of US President Donald Trump at the upcoming summit of the diplomatic-military group Quad (Quad, composed of Australia, India, Japan, USA), and the first visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi these days to China, first after seven years, are possible signals of new geopolitical borders, which in the wake of the “US tariffs salvo” are being developing between East and West. One of those “borders” possibly, in the amphitheatre of the Indian Ocean.
Namely, in the context of more or less stormy commercial and, with them, likely military-political realignments towards Washington’s new global tariffs regime, the question of the successful scope of Trump’s tariff measures is starting to take on a geographical dimension.
In one variant, that question could be : “What is the military-political influence of the USA today on the strategic geographic approaches to the West, for example along the north western rims of the Indian Ocean and to the Red Sea?”.
This particularly, after Washington’s decision this spring to withdraw its naval forces from positions opposite Yemen, close to areas of aggressive action by the rebel Houthis, both against numerous merchant ships in transit, and against Israel. Meanwhile, on that rim of the Indian Ocean, not far from the Strait of Hormuz, the Arabian Sea, the coasts of Yemen and the eastern coasts of Africa, the US has strongholds at Diego Garcia in the middle of the Indian Ocean, and Djibouti near Bab el Mandeb.
Is that enough for Washington?
Be that as it may, as of last weekend, and after confirming that Israeli military forces had killed Ahmed Ghaleb al-Rahwi, the prime minister of Yemen’s Houthi rebel administration, Iran’s National Guard warned last weekend that “the geography of resistance will expand.”
It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that Washington has been keeping open lines of communication with the government of Somaliland for some time now. Somaliland being an area (137,600 square kilometres, about six million inhabitants) that separated from Somalia in 1991, without gaining the status of an internationally recognized state. Somaliland stretches along the African shores of the Gulf of Aden—directly opposite the Houthi strongholds, while on land it borders Djibouti to the northwest, Ethiopia to the south, and Somalia (the Puntland region) to the east.
Access to the port of Berbera (perhaps also a military base), unused reserves of lithium and other rare earth minerals, possible agreements on the relocation of migrants…, are part of the offers of the President of Somaliland, Abdirahman Mahamed Abdullahi Irro to the American President Donald Trump in anticipation of the recognition of statehood, according to knowledgeable observers.
“We are looking into it “, Donald Trump indicated on this matter recently, after a series of initiatives on Capitol Hill, that Washington should recognizes Somaliland as an independent state, despite the fact that the African Union and the official Mogadishu strongly advocate “one Somalia”.
