Following the strategic dialogue between Egypt and the US, held in Washington in early November 2021, a joint statement said the meetings, led by Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri and his American counterpart Antony Blinken, had offered an important opportunity for the two allies to discuss issues of mutual interest and joint collaboration.
Two months later, however, the US administration decided to withhold $130 million in US military aid to Egypt. The withheld funds represent 10 per cent of the $1.3 billion that the US has earmarked for Egypt annually since 2017.
On 27 January, Blinken spoke on the phone with Shoukri to inform him of the administration’s decision. According to a US State Department statement, Blinken reaffirmed to Shoukri the importance of human rights in the bilateral relationship between the two countries.
While some American media outlets cited unnamed US officials as saying that the Biden administration believes Egypt isn’t doing enough to improve its human rights record, officials in Egypt declined to comment.
“I think Egyptian officials refuse to comment on these sensitive issues because they prefer to discuss them through diplomatic channels with American officials,” said Mohamed Salah Abu Himila, a member of the House of Representatives’ Defence and National Security Committee. He added that Cairo had, in any case, anticipated the cut in US aid.
Abu Himila argues that since President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi came to power in 2014, Egypt has circumvented US pressure and conditions by diversifying its defence purchases, with Russia, France, and Germany becoming important suppliers of arms. Egypt’s imports of arms from Russia, France, Germany, and Italy have all surged since 2014, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Abu Himila also points out that much of the economic assistance Egypt now receives comes from Arab Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait.
Yet despite the cut to aid, on 10 March the US news website Politico reported that the US Senate approved $2.2 billion worth of defence sales to Egypt by an overwhelming majority. The package includes advanced air defence systems and C-130 Super Hercules transport aircraft. The US Defense Security Cooperation Agency said the sales will improve Egypt’s capability to meet current and future threats by providing airlift support for its forces, and that the aircraft can also be used for maritime patrol and rescue missions.
On 16 March, US Central Command Chief General Frank McKenzie told the Senate’s Armed Services Committee that the US might also sell Egypt advanced F-15 fighter jets. McKenzie did not provide details of the sale, but according to Aviation Week it will probably involve the advanced F-15X fighter jet, which can fly at 3,000 km per hour, and has a range of 5,500 km.
McKenzie visited Egypt last month and met with Minister of Defence Mohamed Zaki and other senior military officials. On another visit in February last year he met with President Al-Sisi.
“It was a pleasure to meet with President Al-Sisi and other military leaders in Cairo to identify ways to strengthen US-Egyptian relations,” McKenzie said, adding that “our defence relationship has endured — and will continue — for the benefit of both our great nations.”
Informed Pentagon sources told Reuters that “McKenzie’s visit to Cairo [in 2022] and Washington’s approval of a $2.2 billion arms deal to Egypt came immediately following Joe Biden’s administration’s decision to withhold $130 million in military aid to Egypt.” Reuters also quoted Senator Rand Paul as saying: “We are partially taking away some military aid while offering new sales that are 10 times what we’ve withheld.”
“It seems that US generals and military people in the Pentagon want a closer relationship with Egypt, while some senior figures in the US administration, the State Department and Congress, have other opinions,” former assistant foreign minister Mohamed Hegazi said in a TV interview.
While US military officials have long stressed Egypt’s role in expediting the passage of US warships through the Suez Canal and granting overflight for American military aircraft, Congressmen like Rand Paul, and rights groups such as the New York-based Human Rights Watch, have been busy trying to persuade the administration in Washington to further reduce US aid to Egypt.
Washington, says Hegazi, has followed the growth in military relations between Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates on the one hand, and Russia on the other with growing concern.
Hegazi argues that “these countries, which used to describe themselves as US allies, decided, in the face of Washington’s turning a deaf ear to their requests for military supplies to safeguard their national security, to look for other suppliers.”
“Neither,” he adds, “have they concealed their reservations about Washington’s lack of resolve in the face of ongoing Iranian provocations.”
Firas Maksad, a professor at George Washington University, noted in an article titled “Crisis in US-Middle East relations” that Washington needs to recommit itself to the region. “Most of America’s Middle Eastern allies — Israel, Jordan, Turkey, and Egypt — are expanding ties to Russia and China at America’s expense,” wrote Maksad.
“We saw how the UAE refused to toe Washington’s line and abstained from condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in the UN Security Council three weeks ago, and this week decided to receive Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad,” says Hegazi. “ Saudi Arabia has similarly ignored American requests to pump more oil in a bid to push prices down.
“Perhaps the new arms deal with Egypt, if completed, will reassure Arab allies that America actually cares about their national security.”
Hegazi and Abu Himila believe that it is too early to say how the war in Ukraine will impact Egyptian-American relations, or those between the US and Saudi Arabia and the UAE, though Abu Himilia argues that, “regardless of any scenarios the war might produce”, relations with Washington will remain a priority for all three states.
During his visit to Cairo, General McKenzie said: “We still have a very robust weapons programme with Egypt and we’re still very heavily engaged with them.”
*A version of this article appears in print in the 24 March, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.
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