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Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s first remarks in office laid bare the new administration’s litmus test for foreign aid: “Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Or does it make America more prosperous?” By these metrics, U.S. assistance to Somalia represents a catastrophic failure on all three counts. President Trump’s executive order suspending foreign assistance exposes the bankruptcy of America’s most expensive state-building experiment in Africa.
“Does it make America safer?
Does it make America stronger?
Or does it make America more prosperous?”
— Secretary of State Marco Rubio
The scale of American taxpayer exposure in Somalia is staggering. In fiscal year 2023, U.S. aid totaled $1.21 billion, creating an elaborate ecosystem of international organizations, contractors, and NGOs that have transformed aid dependency into an industry. The UN system alone received $897.7 million of these funds, demonstrating how international bureaucracies have positioned themselves as permanent intermediaries between donor funds and Somali recipients.
Somalia exemplifies what Secretary Rubio termed the “dangerous delusion” of post-Cold War foreign policy, where “serving the liberal world order” replaced genuine national interests. The humanitarian aid sector perfectly illustrates this dysfunction. In 2023, International Disaster Assistance consumed $873.3 million, flowing primarily through UN agencies that have perfected the art of transforming emergency assistance into permanent institutional infrastructure, with pristine compounds and luxury vehicles becoming the most visible symbols of aid in Mogadishu.
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All the data in this report comes from ForeignAssistance.gov, the U.S. government’s official foreign aid tracker. You can explore:
- Detailed transaction records
- Implementing partner information
- Project-specific data
- Historical aid patterns
The security sector epitomizes this dysfunctional aid architecture. In 2023, U.S. security assistance reached $159.6 million, including $128.2 million for peacekeeping operations, yet produced no discernible improvement in Somalia’s security situation. While the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations absorbed the lion’s share of these funds, actual military training of Somali forces received a mere $349,826. This imbalance has created the perverse outcome where Al-Shabaab demonstrates more effective governance and revenue collection than the government itself in territories under its control.
Food assistance tells an equally troubling story, with $88.8 million allocated through Title II grants. This massive investment flows through a labyrinth of intermediaries: U.S.-based NGOs received $152.5 million in total across all sectors, while multilateral organizations consumed $933.9 million. Private contractors collected $77.4 million, while direct support to Somali government institutions amounted to just $18.3 million – a telling indication of donor trust after decades of “capacity building.”
The aid industry’s entrenchment in Somalia has created a parallel economy that serves international organizations rather than local needs. Mogadishu’s real estate market exemplifies this distortion: neighborhoods surrounding NGO compounds and international organization offices have seen property values skyrocket, while basic services remain nonexistent for most residents. The city has effectively been divided into two economies: the aid economy, characterized by high-end restaurants, luxury SUVs, and expensive housing compounds, and the actual Somali economy, where most citizens struggle to access basic services.
Somalia’s government has perfected the use of international aid narratives, often framing crises as existential threats to global security. A striking example is the defunct Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Somalia and Ethiopia, which Somali officials portrayed as energizing Al-Shabaab and terrorist networks—conveniently omitting their own incendiary rhetoric. Notably, Somali government leaders have hinted at waging jihad against Ethiopia and Somaliland, further exposing the contradictions in their narrative. Such strategies ensure the uninterrupted flow of aid while deflecting scrutiny of Somalia’s internal governance failures.
Most troubling is Somalia’s cynical exploitation of Western aid while actively courting China’s strategic ambitions in the Horn of Africa. While absorbing over a billion dollars in U.S. assistance in 2023, Mogadishu simultaneously deepened its engagement with Beijing through the Belt and Road Initiative, granted Chinese vessels privileged fishing rights in its territorial waters, and engaged in preliminary discussions about hosting Chinese military facilities. This diplomatic duplicity epitomizes Secretary Rubio’s warning about how the post-war global order has become “a weapon being used against us.”
Critics warning of Chinese or Russian influence filling any aid vacuum fundamentally misread both history and current realities. Despite its diplomatic overtures, Somalia has failed to secure Chinese commitments matching Western assistance levels. Beijing’s engagement in East Africa focuses on countries with stronger institutions and more valuable resources, preferring transactional relationships that deliver concrete benefits rather than open-ended commitments. Similarly, Russia’s limited presence in Somalia serves primarily to extract diplomatic concessions and expand its influence at minimal cost, with no indication that Moscow would shoulder the massive burden of replacing Western aid.
Somalia has mastered the art of leveraging Western humanitarian concerns while pursuing strategic relationships with rival powers. The current aid model has created not a functional state but a sophisticated mechanism for transforming international assistance into institutional maintenance for an aid industry that measures success by money spent rather than results achieved. The $1.21 billion spent in 2023 represents not investment in Somalia’s future but subsidies for an international aid architecture that perpetuates dependency.
The Trump administration’s aid freeze forces a confrontation with uncomfortable truths about America’s post-Cold War approach to foreign assistance. The fundamental question isn’t whether Somalia will face hardship – it will – but whether this might finally break a cycle of dependency that has made Somalia the world’s most expensive failed state. The coming months will reveal whether Somalia’s political class can develop genuine governance capacity or whether three decades of international assistance have created institutions too hollowed out to survive without constant external life support.
In the end, as Secretary Rubio asked in his first address, “How can America promote the cause of peace on Earth if it is not first safe at home?” Somalia’s aid dependency offers a clear answer: it cannot.