US President Donald Trump said Friday he did not intend to immediately follow Israel in recognizing Somalia’s breakaway region of Somaliland as an independent country.
“Everything is under study … We’ll study it. I study a lot of things and always make great decisions and they turn out to be correct,” Trump told the New York Post in a phone interview.
“Does anyone know what Somaliland is, really?” he asked.
On Somaliland’s proposal to provide the US with access to a port on the strategically significant Gulf of Aden, Trump responded dismissively, saying: “Big deal.”
He can’t figure out which one is still just Somalia and which one is Somaliland.
Oh wow, I thought I made that up, but apparently he really didn’t know what Somaliland was. Still kind of weird that they’re giving Israel credit as the first to recognize Somaliland. Ethiopia made a deal with Somaliland last year to grant Ethiopia port access in Somaliland partially in exchange for official recognition from Ethiopia. I can’t figure out why that doesn’t count and Israel gets the ‘first’.