HARGEISA, SOMALILAND—President Donald Trump deserves credit: He has flipped the traditional White House script. While his predecessors spoke about embracing Africa, their rhetoric was empty. Trump dismissed Africa, but his administration under Special Envoy Massad Boulos has worked nonstop to resolve decades-long Africa disputes.
Boulos has shuttled around the continent, from Congo to Libya, negotiating agreements in pursuit of both Trump’s quest for a Nobel Peace Prize and commercial opportunity. His latest scheme has him mediating the long-running dispute between Cairo and Addis Ababa over Ethiopia’s unilateral damming of the Nile River. Egypt, dependent on Nile waters, has long warned Ethiopia that its pursuit of the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) project could escalate matters, though Cairo has stopped short of threatening war.
Egypt and Ethiopia’s proxy fight inside Sudan increasingly overshadows that of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Increasingly, though, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed seems to have outplayed Egypt in the dispute. Ethiopia has filled the dam, leaving Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi little leverage.
Egypt has instead responded by cobbling together an anti-Ethiopia alliance. Egypt and Ethiopia’s proxy fight inside Sudan increasingly overshadows that of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Indeed, Cairo’s antagonism toward Addis Ababa is now so great, that it allies with Iran, Turkey, and the Houthis in Sudan’s brutal civil war.
Egypt has sold weaponry to Somalia, a Turkish client state, both to antagonize Ethiopia, which has fought a major conflict in the late 1970s and several smaller-scale border wars, and to punish Somaliland, an unrecognized state that, in Egypt’s Manichaean view, is too sympathetic to Ethiopia, its largest trading partner. This Egyptian decision is self-defeating for two reasons. First, Somalia’s government cannot control its weaponry. Because of Somalia’s corruption, the arms Cairo provides Mogadishu are as likely to leak back to the Muslim Brotherhood as they are to fight extremists in Somalia. Somaliland, meanwhile, has never blindly sided with Ethiopia, and so Sisi’s current policy creates a self-fulfilling prophecy as Egyptian support for Somali irredentism forces Somaliland to rely on Ethiopia more for its own survival.
Egypt has also reached out to Eritrea, Africa’s most repressive regime and a country that flirts with being a state sponsor of terrorism and has repeatedly waged war against Ethiopia directly or by proxy. While Egypt simply wants to complete Ethiopia’s encirclement, it justifies its outreach in terms of Red Sea security.
Somaliland, meanwhile, is the region’s most democratic country and is unapologetically pro-Western.
Enter U.S. Envoy Massad Boulos, who in April 2026 announced his desire to lift many U.S. sanctions on Eritrea. His position has raised eyebrows throughout the region due to its confusing strategic logic. While Egypt remains an ally of the United States, Eritrea is fiercely anti-American and, indeed, has increasingly close ties with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Somalia, meanwhile, is a satrapy of China.
While Ethiopia is at times problematic, it maintains cordial relations with Israel. Somaliland, meanwhile, is the region’s most democratic country and is unapologetically pro-Western. This has raised suspicion that personal business interests rather than U.S. national security motivate Boulos. Many throughout the region suspect Eritrean dictator Isaias Afwerki has offered Boulos an interest in Eritrean gold mines. Boulos, for his part, has taken to X to dispel the rumors that he is choosing sides with an anti-American alliance and not being an honest broker.
Perhaps Boulos protests too much, but any alliance that sides with Eritrea raises significant questions. Not only is the regime fiercely anti-American but, even if Isaias suddenly changed sides after a lifetime of animosity to the United States, Isaias is 80 years old, in poor health, and has no clear succession plan. That is a curious peg for Boulos to attach U.S. national security. Indeed, while the Trump administration is right to mediate between Cairo and Addis Ababa, any bet on Eritrea is a losing one and a sure sign that regional peace and security are not the mediator’s top priority.
