Trump on Somalia: What’s happening in the African nation?

The comments stem from a scandal related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Authorities allege widespread fraud occurred within some sectors of the Somali community in Minnesota, with dozens of individuals accused of amassing fortunes by creating companies that billed state agencies millions of dollars for food services never provided.

Federal prosecutors say 59 people have been convicted in connection with the schemes, and more than $1 billion in taxpayer money has been stolen across three ongoing investigations.

Somalia is currently on the list of countries with travel restrictions to the U.S., and Trump has indicated he will end the Temporary Protected Status program that has shielded many refugees from the African nation for years.

“We don’t want them in our country. Let them go back to where they came from and fix it,” Trump said.

But what is the situation in Somalia? And what role has, and continues to play, the United States in the ongoing challenges there?

Located in the Horn of Africa, along the Indian Ocean and the strategic Gulf of Aden, Somalia is a predominantly Muslim country prone to drought and the resulting famines.

With one of the lowest Gross Domestic Products (GDP) in the world, the World Bank estimates that 54% of its population lives below the poverty line.

With a largely underdeveloped economy and agriculture as its primary sector, Somalia has been mired in internal conflict for decades, experiencing various phases and interventions from multiple foreign powers.

The chaos began with the collapse of the military regime of Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, opening the door to decades of violence and anarchy.

The federal government, based in the capital Mogadishu, which has international recognition, has been attempting for years, with the support of an African Union military mission, to defeat insurgent groups and establish effective control of the country.

Rivalries between clans and the interests of foreign powers, combined with the government’s unpopularity in large areas of the country, have made it impossible to achieve a stable and functional state.

In the north, in territories formerly under British protectorate, the Somaliland region declared its independence in 1991, and although it has not been internationally recognized as an independent state, it has been functioning completely independently of Mogadishu ever since.

East of Somaliland, the Puntland region, although formally one of Somalia’s federal states, functions as an autonomous entity where a core of Islamic State militants has grown in recent years.

“It is estimated that there are no more than 400, but they have settled in a strategic mountainous area in the north, close to the Gulf of Aden, through which weapons arrive from Yemen,” a neighboring country also at war for years, Jethro Norman of the Danish Institute for International Studies told BBC Mundo.

Currently, the insurgency of Al-Shabaab, a group affiliated with al-Qaeda that controls much of southern Somalia and has been able to strike in Mogadishu with attacks that have caused dozens of deaths, has become the main concern of Washington and the federal government.

“In terms of territorial control, it is probably the most successful al-Qaeda-affiliated group,” Roger Middleton, director of management at the Sabi Insight analysis center, told BBC Mundo.

Middleton explains that “the government managed to put Al-Shabaab on the defensive, but now the advance has stalled or reversed,” and the rebels have regained control of large areas of territory.

The African Union mission has been reducing its size and operations, partly due to the exhaustion of European countries that largely finance it and the Africans that provide the troops. Neither sees sustained progress in the fight against Al-Shabaab.

With less support, Somali government forces have been unable to maintain control of the territory they had recaptured in the last two years.

In addition to local actors, foreign influences play a role.

Currently, the United States, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates frequently carry out airstrikes against insurgent groups in Somalia.

But the country has long been the scene of foreign actions of various kinds.

In 1992, when different “warlords” were vying for power after the fall of Siad Barre, U.S. President Bill Clinton launched Operation Restore Hope, with the stated goal of alleviating famine in the country and establishing a democratic government capable of governing.

On October 3, 1993, a special forces operation to capture local rebel leaders in Mogadishu went awry when insurgents shot down two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters.

The attempt to rescue their occupants triggered hours of fighting in which 18 U.S. soldiers died. Images of their bodies being dragged through the streets by a victorious crowd shocked the American public.

The episode inspired Ridley Scott’s successful film “Black Hawk Down” and remains a wound to national pride for many Americans.

“That has not been forgotten, either in the United States or in Somalia, and the years of subsequent U.S. bombings, with the civilian casualties they have caused, have created a great deal of distrust,” Norman noted.

The incident led Washington to minimize the exposure of its troops on the ground, but it maintained its involvement in the Somali scenario.

In 2007, Washington initiated its selective airstrikes in Somalia.

Most carried out by drones and targeting “terrorists” opposing the federal government.

The U.S. has consistently maintained that its actions in Somalia have been aimed at bolstering the federal government and stabilizing the country’s institutions, but Norman believes that goal has long been overshadowed by the difficulty of achieving it.

“The real concern has been to contain the problems in Somalia and prevent groups like Al-Shabaab from spreading to other countries in the region, such as Kenya or Uganda,” he explained.

As of May, U.S. Army Africa commander Gen. Michael Langley said his forces had carried out more than 25 airstrikes in Somalia this year, double the number from all of 2023.

“U.S. forces are actively pursuing the removal of jihadists,” Langley said.

But reports from several organizations show that the victims are not always jihadists.

AFRICOM has confirmed that some of its actions have also resulted in non-combatant casualties, and Airwars, a non-governmental organization that monitors casualties in conflict, estimates that U.S. operations in Somalia have killed between 92 and 167 civilians, including at least 25 children.

“Every time this happens, many Somalis perceive it as a foreign attack in support of a federal government that many see as corrupt, an idea that Al-Shabaab’s propaganda skillfully exploits,” Middleton noted.

He believes they are “external attacks to sustain a government that is seen as an imposition.”

In addition to war and poverty, Somalis frequently suffer from the effects of droughts, which lead to insufficient harvests and famines.

A report by the independent UN expert on human rights in Somalia, Isha Dyfant, concluded that more than 1.5 million Somali children were facing severe malnutrition and 730 children had died in nutrition centers across the country in 2023.

The report highlights that “the severity of droughts in the Horn of Africa, including Somalia, would not have occurred without human-induced climate change,” which has made them “more frequent and extreme.”

Trump has repeatedly stated that he does not believe climate change is a threat and described it as “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the world” in a speech to the UN General Assembly in September.

Despite the fact that his country is the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, Trump decided to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, the international pact reached to curb it.

The president