The Biden Administration Is Embracing Egypt’s Dictator Sisi
Joe Biden promised to end Donald Trump’s “love affair” with tyrants like the Egyptian ruler Sisi. But now he looks set to approve a super-sized military aid package that helps prop up Sisi’s regime.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi at the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris (UN Climate Change/Wikimedia Commons)
In the coming weeks, Secretary of State Antony Blinken will make an important Middle East policy decision that will illuminate the Biden administration’s attitude towards human rights in the region. Will the administration waive human rights conditions and deliver $300 million in military financing to Egypt that Congress has conditioned on improvements in its human rights record? Or will it even give Egypt a pass on human rights, as it has already done with Saudi Arabia, in spite of Biden’s campaign pledges?
The decision to deliver the full $1.3 billion military aid package is one that successive secretaries of state have made, despite the ostensible differences in their administrations, from John Kerry to Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo. Now, eyes are on the decision to release the military assistance that Blinken has inherited.
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Egypt is the world’s second-largest recipient of US military aid, after Israel. Since 1978, it has received over $50 billion in military and $30 billion in economic assistance. All military aid since 1985 has consisted of grants which do not have to be repaid. For FY 2020, Egypt is slated to receive $1.3 billion in foreign military financing — the same level of funding it has received since 1987.
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