Finian Cunningham
Warmongering Trump is shaping up the American capitalist business-as-usual to be even more criminal and out of control.
Hardly reported in the Western media is the blitzkrieg being conducted by the Trump administration on Somalia, the easternmost country on the African continent, and one of the world's poorest.
Donald Trump began his presidency in January 2025, declaring himself a peacemaker to end all U.S. overseas wars. He even thinks he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize despite ordering a massive aerial bombardment of Iran earlier this year and launching the ongoing aggression against Venezuela, including blowing up dozens of civilian boats off the Latin American coast.
But perhaps the biggest anomaly in Trump's peace posturing is the U.S. airstrikes in Somalia. Last week, the country was bombed for the 90th time this year, according to reporting in antiwar.com. Trump's secret war in Somalia is not being reported by the mainstream media. No surprise there, given the Western media's longtime shameful role of covering up for U.S. illegal aggression. Nor is the Pentagon providing any data on casualties.
To put the scale of this military involvement into perspective, 90 bombing raids on Somalia during 10 months of Trump's second presidency compare with a total of 51 airstrikes on Somalia under Biden in four years and 48 under Obama in eight years. (Of course, a separate question is: what gives any U.S. president the right to bomb the impoverished African country in the first place?)
The only other country bombed as intensively is Yemen, the Arabian Peninsula nation located north of Somalia, across the Gulf of Aden. In two months during Trump's second presidency, the number of Yemenis killed by U.S. airstrikes - over 200 - was almost as many as had been recorded in the previous 20 years of American bombardment, according to an airwars.org study. Trump's bombing of Yemen stopped after a ceasefire was called in June 2025. (Separately, a U.S.-backed Saudi war on Yemen from 2015 killed tens of thousands.)
Somalia and Yemen - 19 and 42 million population, respectively - are ranked among the poorest 10 countries on Earth.
The strategic location of the two countries explains why the United States is so keen to deploy its military force. Both nations are among the least developed, but they also have large untapped oil and gas reserves.
Somalia and Yemen straddle the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea shipping route, one of the world's busiest cargo chokepoints. The strategic significance of the location is demonstrated by the way the Yemenis have successfully restricted Israel-bound container vessels in support of Gaza, which is no doubt why Trump called a halt to U.S. airstrikes on Yemen in June.
The northeastern tip of Somalia is the highest point on the Horn of Africa. The Puntland, as it is known, is a semi-autonomous region within Somalia whose federal government is located further south in Mogadishu. Somalia has the longest coastline on the continent of Africa, and Puntland offers a vantage point overlooking the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea.
The United States is providing military air support to the government in Mogadishu and the administration in Puntland, ostensibly to fight Islamist militants. The bombing raids ordered by Trump are purportedly targeting Al Qaeda-affiliated militants.
Somalia and Yemen are believed to be part of the same geological formation, having been contiguous land territory until 18 million years ago, before the continental rift split the Horn of Africa from Arabia. The two countries are reckoned to share the same rich oil and gas deposits, both onshore and offshore.
Since 2012, the Puntland regional authorities have granted the U.S. oil firm Range Resources drilling concessions. Other American oil companies with interests in Somalia are Conoco and Chevron. Two areas in particular have promising commercial potential: the Nugaal Valley and the Dharoor Valley. However, the unrecognized breakaway country of Somaliland, a former British colony to the west of Puntland, sent military forces to occupy the Nugaal Valley, claiming historic ownership. That territorial dispute has put the U.S. oil and gas exploration in jeopardy, or at least introduced complications.
The energy mining interests are one reason explaining the U.S. military deployment in Somalia. The official rationale of combating Islamist militants serves as a pretext. Washington's relationship with Jihadists is notoriously mercurial and self-serving. The so-called "war on terror" has been a useful ploy for U.S. intervention in foreign nations for ulterior objectives, such as control of natural resources or projecting military power. This week saw the former head of Al Qaeda in Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, hosted by President Trump in the White House. The group that supposedly carried out 9/11 and the killing of 3,000 Americans in 2001 is now honored in the White House.
The Al Qaeda-affiliated militants in Somalia are a useful enemy, giving Washington a public rationale for bombing that country. The real purpose is to consolidate a U.S. foothold in the Horn of Africa to exploit its natural resources. Such a foothold also gives the U.S. an option in the future to increase offensive force against Yemen for the goal of subjugating that country for its oil and gas potential.
With both sides of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden under its eventual command, the United States gains control over a critical shipping route and an important advantage over geopolitical rivals China and Russia, whose supply chains can be severed.
Trump's peace declarations on taking office and his promises to end overseas wars by focusing on building up "America First" seem to be a cynical con, or as he might put it, the "art of the deal". The 47th president of the U.S. is continuing with gusto the imperial agenda of bombing and making war. But warmongering Trump is not simply American capitalist business-as-usual. It's shaping up to be even more criminal and out of control.