In 1897, the Geledi Sultanate sent a high-profile delegation to New York under their foreign minister Khalid Aden Mohammed and signed the Indian Ocean Naval Treaty to combat Zanzibar slave trading.

The US had been courting the Somali government for some time on account of Somalia's strategic position at the mouth of the Bab el Mandeb gateway to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.

Somalia's initial friendship with the Soviet Union and later military support by the United States enabled it to build the largest army on the continent.

[6] In January 2013, the U.S. announced that it was set to exchange diplomatic notes with the new central government of Somalia, re-establishing official ties with the country for the first time in 20 years.

The endorsement officially lifts the purchase ban on light weapons for a provisional period of one year, but retains certain restrictions on the procurement of heavy arms such as surface-to-air missiles, howitzers and cannons.

[10] At the request of the Somali authorities and AMISOM, the U.S. military in late 2013 also established a small team of advisers in Mogadishu to provide consultative and planning support to the allied forces.

[11] On 5 May 2015, President of Somalia Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, and other senior Somali government officials met with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Mogadishu.

In June 2009, the reconstituted SNA received 40 tonnes worth of arms and ammunition from the U.S. government to assist it in combating the Islamist insurgency within southern Somalia.

[24] In February 2015, U.S. President Barack Obama nominated Foreign Service veteran Katherine Simonds Dhanani to become the new Ambassador of the United States to Somalia.

[26] In May 2015, in recognition of the sociopolitical progress made in Somalia and its return to effective governance, US Secretary of State John Kerry announced a preliminary plan to reestablish the US embassy in Mogadishu.

[27] President of Somalia Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke also presented to Kerry the real estate deed for land reserved for the new US embassy compound.