Earlier this month, reports emerged that U.S. President Donald Trump had asked his senior advisors to devise a plan for the withdrawal of the 650 to 800 U.S. forces stationed in Somalia. This directive cast a striking contrast with Trump’s prior track record of supporting the expansion of U.S. military involvement in Somalia. For example, in March 2017, Trump approved a Pentagon proposal to expand the scope of U.S. airstrikes against al-Shabab in central and southern Somalia. In 2019, the United States carried out 63 airstrikes on al-Shabab targets. Between January and May this year, it conducted 40. That’s a drastic increase from the 14 strikes that U.S. President Barack Obama authorized in 2016.
Trump’s about-face might well be electoral theater, not an indication of real policy shift. After all, the president announced the drawdown of 2,200 U.S. troops from Iraq in September and recently pledged to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by Christmas. Nevertheless, senior Somali and Kenyan officials immediately expressed alarm at Trump’s willingness to even entertain the idea of U.S. withdrawal. Shortly after the directive was made public, Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed emphasized the central role the U.S.-Somalia partnership plays in stabilizing the Horn of Africa. On Oct. 18, Kamau Macharia, Kenya’s former ambassador to the United Nations and current foreign-affairs principal secretary, opined that a U.S. exit “will worsen the already fragile situation in the country.”
