BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, BRUNEI // The United States is poised to slash hundreds of millions of dollars in military and economic assistance to Egypt, officials said on Wednesday.
The US has been considering such a move since Mohammed Morsi was removed from power in July and an official announcement is expected this week, once notifications have been made to all interested parties.
It would be a dramatic shift for the Obama administration, which has declined to label Mr Morsi’s ousting a coup and has argued that it is in US national security interests to keep aid flowing.
The move follows a particularly violent weekend in Egypt, as dozens of people were killed in clashes between security forces and Morsi supporters.
President Barack Obama’s top national security aides recommended the aid cut-off in late August, and Mr Obama had been expected to announce it last month. But the announcement got sidetracked by the debate over whether to launch military strikes against Syria.
The US provides Egypt with US$1.5 billion (Dh5.5bn) a year in aid, $1.3bn of which is military assistance. The rest is economic assistance. Some of it goes to the government and some to other groups. Only the money that goes to the government would be suspended.
Egypt has other allies who may be able to fill the financial void.
Saudi Arabia and some of its Gulf Arab partners have been a critical financial lifeline for Egypt’s new government, pledging at least $12bn so far. On Monday, Egypt’s interim president, Adly Mansour, visited Saudi Arabia on his first foreign trip in a sign of the importance of the Gulf aid and political backing.
The planned cut-off of US aid also underscored the strategic shifts under way in the region as US allies in the Gulf forge ahead with policies at odds with Washington. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, including the UAE and Qatar, are strong backers of Syrian rebel factions and were openly dismayed when the US set aside possible military strikes against Bashar Assad’s government.
Officials said in September that the recommendation involving US aid to Egypt called for a significant amount to be withheld. The money could be restored once a democratically elected government is returned.
While the exact amount to be suspended was up to the president, the principals recommended it include all foreign military financing to Egypt’s army except for money that supports security in the increasingly volatile Sinai Peninsula and along Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip, US officials said.
Assistance that is used to pay American companies that sell Egypt military equipment would be suspended if Mr Obama accepts the recommendation, but those firms would be compensated with so-called “windup” payments that could amount to hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the officials.
In excerpts from an interview published on Wednesday by the Cairo daily Al Masry Al Youm, Gen Abdul Fattah El Sisi offered his own interpretation of where the Obama administration stands.
“We need to be clear here and say they are keen on continuing the aid and that it is not cut off,” he said. “They are trying to take measures that conform with the spirit of the law and deal with what happened in Egypt as the outcome of popular will.”
Any suspension of US assistance to Egypt would follow months of internal deliberation over how to respond to Morsi’s ousting, during which the administration has struggled to enunciate a coherent policy.
Associated Press
