Belal Abdallah
At the start of 2025, the Libyan file was characterized by a state of vacuum and stagnation, eight months after the resignation of UN Special Envoy Abdoulaye Bathily, following the failure of his proposed settlement approach. With Donald Trump’s return to the White House – coinciding with the appointment of UN envoy Hanna Tetteh – the file gradually regained momentum over the course of 2025.
This shift reflected renewed, tangible interest from the Trump administration, alongside Tetteh’s efforts, to articulate a new framework for resolving the conflict. As 2026 begins, Libya appears to stand on the threshold of a potential breakthrough that could yield concrete progress toward ending political divisions. Against this backdrop, a central question arises over whether U.S. and UN initiatives are converging or diverging in advancing the settlement process.
American moves and the Libyan response
The U.S. approach to Libya is closely aligned with the broader economic logic underpinning the Trump administration’s foreign policy, whereby American interests across various conflicts are largely viewed through economic considerations. Within this framework, Trump’s view of Libya is primarily shaped by the country’s oil-producing status.
This recalls an earlier statement during NATO’s intervention, when he argued that the United States was entitled to half of Libya’s oil revenues in return for toppling Muammar Gaddafi. But what can President Trump offer a deeply divided Libya, and to what extent would this serve Libyan interests?
Experience over recent years has demonstrated the risks that institutional fragmentation poses to the interests of external actors. These include oil production shutdowns and the difficulties of concluding major oil deals, such as the NC7 field agreement.
In light of this pattern of interaction, the realization of economic gains in Libya requires pursuing two parallel tracks: addressing existing divisions and their adverse effects on the investment environment on the one hand, and, simultaneously, initiating economic deals with the Libyan authorities on the other hand.
Libyan power-holders in both eastern and western Libya were quick to grasp this interest-driven, economically rooted approach. They sought early alignment with U.S. interests before advancing any settlement-related milestones.
In practical terms, the Dbeibeh government, based out of Tripoli in the west, moved quickly to act on this approach. In March 2025, the National Oil Corporation launched its first oil licensing round in eighteen years. Available data on shortlisted bidders show that U.S. companies – absent from Libya for over a decade – were among the main beneficiaries.
In August, the NOC signed a memorandum of understanding with ExxonMobil to conduct geological and geophysical surveys targeting hydrocarbons in four offshore blocks off the northwestern coast and in the Sirte Basin. Finally, in January 2026, Libya concluded a landmark development deal exceeding $20 billion with ConocoPhillips and TotalEnergies.
During Massad Boulos’ July 2025 visit to Tripoli, the Dbeibeh government outlined a strategic economic partnership involving $70 billion in investments. Boulos has served as the U.S. President’s envoy to the Middle East and Africa and the administration’s most active official on Libya.
At the same time, eastern Libyan actors too have signaled their interest in economic engagement with the Trump administration, reflected in the late-April visit of General Khalifa Haftar’s sons, Saddam and Belqasem, to Washington. There, Belqasem, as head of the Libya Reconstruction Fund, took part in the Libya-U.S. Forum for Development and Reconstruction, during which multiple cooperation protocols were signed with American corporations.
The U.S. administration continued to advance its settlement approach. Alongside engagement with de facto authorities in Tripoli and Benghazi – through official visits or the reported clandestine Rome meeting in September 2025 between Saddam Haftar and Ibrahim Dbeibeh, attended by Massad Boulos – Washington maintained pressure on rival factions to take concrete steps toward ending the political split.
In a Bloomberg interview on 20th October 2025, Boulos stated that efforts were being accelerated to reach a comprehensive agreement to end the division dating back to 2011, describing the moment as favorable for a stability-ensuring settlement.
These efforts soon translated into practice with the unification of the “development chapter” in the national budget, a step that resulted from American mediation, as High Council of State member Abdul Jalil al-Shaush confirmed. Trump’s Independence Day message to Presidential Council head Mohamed al-Menfi reinforced this path, stressing the need to end division and expand cooperation with American companies to generate shared economic opportunities.[xi]
UN initiatives and the Libyan response
Unlike the U.S. approach, focused on ending institutional and political divisions, UN-led efforts consistently promote a comprehensive settlement vision – culminating in general elections and the creation of representative institutions reflecting popular legitimacy. Within this framework, existing authorities are implicitly seen as part of the problem rather than neutral stakeholders.
The central contradiction in approaches by successive UN Special Envoys is that, while designed to disengage the political process from its reliance on entrenched de facto authorities, implementation clashes with the principle that any solution must be Libyan-led and not imposed externally.
In practice, this ostensibly principled slogan has been used deceptively by actors benefiting from the status quo, creating a circular dilemma: the settlement aims to replace existing authorities through elections, yet achieving this depends on the cooperation of the same authorities whose removal is a prerequisite.
Consequently, failure has often been an almost inevitable outcome of the approaches pursued. To avert this, the UN Special Envoy has repeatedly signaled to the Security Council the possibility of resorting to alternative political bodies if formal entities fail to provide sufficient cooperation. Although these alternatives have yet to be officially revealed, it is possible to identify several actors with secondary legitimacy, situated on the margins of the central decision-making circle governing the settlement process and assigned complementary roles.
Among these is the Advisory Committee, established by the UN Mission shortly after Tetteh assumed her post, which issued its final report in April, offering proposals to overcome entrenched points of contention in the settlement process. Another example is the structured dialogue launched in December 2025, comprising four tracks.
In her December briefing to the Security Council, Tetteh indicated that recommendations from this dialogue would be used to advance the settlement process, potentially providing legitimacy for measures adopted by the Mission to counter the intransigence of Libya’s formal political actors. Additionally, recently elected municipal councils may offer further alternative legitimacy to exert pressure on national political bodies, given their genuine electoral legitimacy.
Libyan authorities have exhibited an early adversarial stance, even before reaching the most sensitive stages of the settlement process. For instance, several demonstrations were organized outside the Mission’s headquarters in Janzour throughout 2025. Furthermore, during the Special Envoy’s periodic briefing to the Security Council in August, the Mission’s headquarters was targeted by a rocket attack. In eastern Libya, Osama Hammad, head of the Benghazi-based government, threatened to completely sever cooperation with the Mission.
Despite Tetteh’s repeated hints at resorting to alternative mechanisms should official parties fail to cooperate, both the House of Representatives and the High Council of State continue to display significant intransigence on issues requiring consensus, such as agreement on sovereign positions and the restructuring of the High National Elections Commission (HNEC).
Moreover, the heads of both councils rejected a French initiative for a joint meeting during their visit to Paris in December. Most indicators point toward a continued effort by these parties to stifle the momentum of the settlement process as outlined in Tetteh’s initiative.
Where do we stand?
In light of the divergence between the American and UN approaches, an important question is to what extent this divergence may generate negative or positive repercussions for the settlement process. U.S. objectives largely converge with the UN roadmap in its initial stages, particularly those aimed at ending institutional fragmentation and forming a unified government. At this stage, the UN Mission seeks to capitalize on U.S. pressure on Libyan actors to achieve progress. However, a point of divergence between the UN effort and the American role may emerge in a later phase.
Aware of this divergence, Libyan actors have sought a selective separation between the American and UN roles – a dynamic reflected in their differentiated responses to each track. The clearest illustration is the agreement between the House of Representatives and the High Council of State on unifying the development item within the general budget.
While this objective had remained unattainable for years despite UN efforts – and amid ongoing escalation between the two bodies, making meetings of the two chambers’ leaders impossible – U.S. mediation succeeded in pushing both councils to unify the development budget line, likely curbing parallel spending and strengthening financial governance.
The miscalculation by Libyan actors may lie in a narrow interpretation of the U.S. preference for engaging with de facto power holders – an interpretation that does not necessarily imply preserving current figures or allowing them unrestricted latitude. While removing the Haftar family entirely may be difficult, financial reforms, strengthening national institutions, and insulating them from political conflict could significantly curtail the family’s role, confining it mainly to the military sphere.
This process would also restrict their unchecked economic influence, limiting their role to a defined share within a unified government. The same logic applies to Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh, against whom protests were mobilized in Tripoli and Misrata in late 2025. This dynamic was compounded by speculation surrounding his reported health crisis in early 2026 and its potential link to scenarios of his departure from power.
As for the limits of progress in the settlement track beyond forming a unified government, or at least addressing the adverse effects of division on national financial institutions, the issue can be framed in terms of the philosophy guiding international management of the settlement process. Nearly a decade and a half after Gaddafi’s overthrow, this period can be divided into three roughly equal phases.
During the first five years, electoral solutions were attempted, resulting in a division whose repercussions persist, alongside difficulties in reviving the electoral approach as a viable conflict-resolution method. The second phase was marked by the Government of National Accord under Fayez al-Sarraj, emerging from arduous negotiations soon undermined by reversals.
Nevertheless, the international community maintained its commitment to its legitimacy, enabling Sarraj to enter Tripoli in March 2016, remaining in power for five years. This was followed, in February 2021, by the emergence of the Presidential Council and the Dbeibeh government, a hybrid solution partly electoral and partly consensus-based. Despite renewed division, the international community continues to uphold the legitimacy of this authority five years on.
There appears to be a pattern of five-year governance cycles in Libya, primarily anchored in international recognition of the authorities in Tripoli. Cycles that experimented with electoral, consensual, and subsequently “hybrid” solutions all of failed to resolve the conflict. What might follow?
The current momentum of the settlement process is split between two actors, each favoring a contradictory approach. The Trump administration appears inclined toward a consensual, power-sharing solution, whereas the UN Mission remains committed to its classical preference for an electoral path.
A direct exit from this predicament may not be feasible from within the settlement process itself. The Special Envoy’s hint at resorting to ‘alternative options’ may lack alignment with global power dynamics, particularly if such a path lacks the backing of the U.S. administration. At best, this alternative could only be utilized to broker a consensus on yet another new transitional authority.
Further progress in the settlement process is likely to be contingent upon a set of converging pressure factors. The first relates to the potential success of the U.S. approach to financial governance, which may limit incumbents’ ability to buy social support, weaken clientelist networks, and encourage social actors to favor electoral solutions that better represent their interests. Falling global oil prices could intensify this effect by reducing state revenues and constraining the Central Bank’s unregulated funding of the rival governments.
The second factor involves Libyan actors potentially overplaying tactical maneuvers, misjudging each side’s ability to block the settlement, and offering minimal concessions, which could force major powers to back new arrangements and marginalize current leaders.
The third factor concerns the possibility of Washington pursuing a more assertive stance toward Tripoli and Benghazi, especially in reaction to growing economic or military ties with Beijing and Moscow, aiming to influence Libyan actors’ behavior.
Conclusion
In 2026, Libya appears on the verge of a new cycle of transitional arrangements. The accumulation of international power balances and multiplicity of stakeholders suggest a decisive outcome leading to a fully-fledged, durable settlement remains unlikely, reinforcing continued management of the Libyan file through an international governance framework.
This dynamic is compounded by the Trump administration’s insistence on a highly transactional approach aimed at maximizing economic gains, without a corresponding commitment to a comprehensive political settlement aligned with the UN. Nevertheless, American opportunism – despite narrow calculations – may still yield benefits that can constrain de facto power holders from exercising unchecked control over national wealth. In this sense, it could contribute indirectly to gradually forming more favorable conditions for a broader, representative political settlement reflecting the Libyan people’s interests.
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