Above photo: Somali immigrants and supporters protest Trump statements in Minneapolis, Minnesota. ox 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Donald Trump’s anti-Somali rants are not directed solely at members of that group.
All Black/African people are seen as suspects, as ungrateful criminals who are deserving of punishment and scorn. Trump is not alone in this thinking.
On two recent occasions, Donald Trump, president of the United States, engaged in a racist meltdown against the African nation of Somalia and its citizens who migrated to the United States. In the first instance, he called Somalia the “worst country on earth” and claimed that Somalis “destroyed” Minnesota and turned it into a “hell hole.” Not long after, while speaking to the press at a cabinet meeting, he referred to a member of congress, Ilhan Omar, as “garbage.” He also used the term to describe everyone coming from her home country of Somalia. For good measure, he added that Somali immigrants were “88% on welfare,” and “their country is no good for a reason. Their country stinks.”
One hardly knows where to begin in analyzing these tirades, which exemplified Trump’s crude pettiness and childlike tantrums and which rehashed his “shithole country” statement from his first term in office. The Trump administration is making good on its promises to curb immigration and to empower Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain and deport thousands of people and to sweep up legal residents and even citizens in the process. Even worse, Trump has always shown a particular animus towards Black immigrants. When he isn’t labeling their origins as “shithole” he is, as in the case of Haitians, accusing them of eating dogs and cats.
The ostensible reason for the rant was charges of fraud carried out by social service agencies led by Somali immigrants in the state of Minnesota. While Trump claims that “billions” were improperly funded, the figure is estimated to be $152 million. Prosecutors have indicted more than 80 people who are accused of charging the state for autism services that were not delivered, overpayments for nutrition programs, medicaid, and housing. In some instances, these services may have been provided, but not for the amounts that were billed.
Not only have the amounts of money in question been inflated by the Trump administration, but there are even claims that funds went directly to Somalia and to the group Al-Shabaab. There is little evidence for this allegation, but the truth is no hindrance to Trump and his team when they are in rage and race-baiting mode, or to many others in the country who are always ready to think the worst about Black people in Minnesota or Somalia or anywhere on planet earth.
The loathing directed at Somali immigrants extends to their homeland. The hatred is not merely rhetorical but is carried out militarily as well. Trump is not the first president to target Somalia, which has the misfortune of being located strategically on the Horn of Africa on the Gulf of Aden and near Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other nations of interest to the United States.
From Bill Clinton to Donald Trump, every president has played a role in keeping Somalia destabilized. The U.S. has encouraged that nation’s actual dissolution by giving support to forces in the Puntland and Somaliland regions who wish to secede. The George W. Bush administration encouraged Ethiopia to invade and to occupy Somalia for two years, and every president has sent drone strikes to bomb this country under the guise of fighting a war against terror.
Trump has bested all of his predecessors in inflicting U.S. violence on Somalia. In less than one year in office, he has bombed Somalia more than 100 times, ten times the number of strikes carried out by the Joe Biden administration in 2024 and more than the combined total carried out during the twelve years that Biden and Barack Obama were in office.
While every president of this white supremacist nation has conducted white supremacist policies, Trump is unique among presidents in the modern era in openly expressing his racism. It isn’t unusual for members of congress to incur presidential wrath, but this columnist can think of no other occasion when one of them was referred to as “garbage” along with an entire group of people who are lawfully in the U.S. and most of whom are citizens. Of course, it is always important to remember the infamous Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford, in which Chief Justice Roger Taney said that no Black person was a citizen and none had any rights that a white man needed to respect.
Not only was Trump’s invective unique and in a very bad way, but the silence surrounding it was also unique. One would expect editorial pages, pundits, and members of congress, to vocally and emphatically jump to the defense of Ilhan Omar and Somali immigrants. Yet a combination of the acceptance of racism and fear of Trump’s vindictiveness has made what should be a scandal a mere blip on the screen of corporate media.
Omar’s colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) did issue a statement in her defense, but it read more like typically bland Democratic Party talking points criticizing Trump policies rather than making it clear that racism was behind the attack.
“Rather than focusing on lowering the cost of living for hardworking American families, ensuring that all Americans have access to quality and affordable healthcare, and bringing our country together, President Trump has once again turned to the same racist and ignorant strategy of targeting Black and immigrant communities to distract from his enormous failures and historically low poll numbers on health care and the economy.”
Trump’s approval ratings are not where the focus of attention ought to be directed. But the CBC long ago gave up elucidating Black politics of any kind. The group of careerists who are joined at the hip with the feckless and traitorous Democratic Party may as well take the word Black out of their name.
There was far less condemnation from other quarters than would have been expected. Trump has achieved the dubious distinction of lowering expectations so much that he can get away with saying and doing what other presidents could not. He also brags about saying out loud what other white people are thinking and, unfortunately, he is correct in that assertion.
Trump used the shooting death of a National Guard trooper, who was only in Washington because of his insistence on controlling that city, to further attack Global South immigrants. The man charged with the shooting was from Afghanistan, where he had worked with the CIA. Not one to waste another opportunity, Trump linked Afghanistan with Somalia. One reporter actually did his job and asked about the connection being made where none existed, only to run up against hatred and ignorance. “What do the Somalians have to do with this Afghan guy who shot the National Guard members?” Trump replied, “Ah, nothing. But Somalians have caused a lot of trouble. They’re ripping us off.”
Afghanistan and Somalia are both worse off than they would have been absent U.S. intervention. Yet the destruction of these two countries is accepted as being good and necessary and the fact that U.S. aggression sends thousands of people fleeing from their homes is ignored in favor of bigoted belief systems about white supremacy and U.S. hegemony.
Most Somali immigrants in Minnesota are now either U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Trump has announced renewed crackdowns on immigrants, threatening to denaturalize and to remove permanent residence status from people who wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t been chased away from their homeland. Hopefully, when they studied for citizenship tests, they learned about Dred Scott and know that any rights they allegedly have are tenuous. As for the descendants of enslaved people here, they would do well to remember they are in the same circumstance as Somalis, always suspected, singled out for criticism and punishment, and the first to be punished when racists are angry. Every Black person in the U.S. has had and will get the Somali treatment.
Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents. You can support her work on Patreon and also find it on Twitter, Bluesky, and Telegram platforms. She can be reached via email at margaret.kimberley@blackagendareport.com.
