Congress should block aid to Egypt

Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced last week that the U.S. would release $320 million in military aid to Egypt, money tied to human rights and democracy benchmarks.

Congress now has the opportunity to withhold these funds rather than incentivize Egypt’s record of undermining democracy at home and abroad, including its interference in U.S. politics. It should not do so.

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) just resigned from Congress last month after a scandal in which Egyptian intelligence had courted him. Individuals with ties to the government of Egypt bribed him with cash, gold bars and luxury gifts. In exchange, he used the power as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to ensure that Cairo received billions in military assistance, despite its horrendous human rights record. In July, a jury convicted Menendez of bribery, extortion and conspiracy, among other charges.

But it takes two to tango — and this isn’t the first time Egypt has tried to interfere in American domestic politics. Egypt has come into the spotlight not only for the Menendez scandal, but also for 2016 investigations into its possible role in providing illicit campaign funds to Donald Trump, who later called President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi his “favorite dictator.”

Across the globe, Egyptian intelligence has targeted those it considers a threat to its international image — including individuals either within or with ties to the U.S.

Egypt continues to detain two U.S. legal permanent residents, Hossam Khalaf and Salah Soltan. And Egyptian officials have shown especially cruel treatment to Soltan and his family, due to the human rights advocacy of his son Mohamed, an American citizen.

Egypt’s record on democracy and human rights is even worse within its own borders. Egypt has experienced a crisis of governance and rights under Sisi’s rule, unseen in the country in modern times. After coming to power in a military coup that ousted a democratically elected president, Sisi has presided over a decade-long political purge — killing, torturing and imprisoning tens of thousands of political opponents.

Sisi has consolidated power in the presidency and its security apparatus, gutting the state’s political parties and amending the constitution to enshrine his authority. The government has targeted activists, lawyers, LGBTQ individuals, TikTok influencers, journalists and many others who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. There is nary a community in Egypt untouched by the crackdown.

In determining that Cairo should receive this tranche of assistance, which is conditioned on progress on human rights criteria, the State Department cited draft reforms to Egypt’s pre-trial detention laws and criminal code, the release of some political prisoners and the closure of a case targeting Egyptian NGO workers. These supposed improvements are anything but. Rights groups assess that more political prisoners have been arrested in the past year than have been released, and Egyptian rights groups and unions have condemned the criminal code reforms as disastrous for human rights.

Blinken also cited Egypt’s value to U.S. national security interests; after all, Egypt is considered one of America’s closest partners in the region. It is a country often perceived as relatively if superficially stable, as it has avoided the conflicts that have consumed Syria, Libya and Yemen. The U.S. and Egypt have enjoyed a decades-long partnership rooted in the agreements forged at Camp David in 1978: Egypt keeps the peace with Israel and acts as a dependable military partner to the U.S., and in return the U.S. ensures that Egypt maintains its military power through American taxpayer-funded provision of materiel and training, to the tune of $1.3 billion annually.

To be fair, Egypt has provided value to America and its regional interests. The Biden administration has relied on Egypt to assist in mediation between Israel and Hamas — a role Egypt has played in past conflicts — and crossings at the Egypt-Israel borders have been critical for bringing aid into and Gazans out of the Strip. The U.S. military also benefits from access to Egyptian airspace and maritime passage through the Suez as it positions for any potential broader regional conflict.

But even as a strategic partner, Egypt’s record has been decidedly mixed. While it has played a key role in negotiations, Egypt has not necessarily been effective or transparent.

In May, mediators from Egypt’s intelligence services bungled cease-fire negotiations when they quietly changed terms in the proposal without the knowledge, let alone support, of the U.S. Egypt has also facilitated aid deliveries through the Rafah and Kerem Shalom border crossings, but Egyptian businessmen close to the presidency have profiteered off the war with impunity, charging exorbitant fees to desperate Palestinians trying to flee the conflict.

Despite legitimate frustration with Israel’s incursion into Rafah, Egypt compounded the suffering in Gaza by stopping aid shipments in a futile effort to force Israel to reopen the Rafah crossing.

America will still need to work with Egypt, whether in reaching a cease-fire in Gaza, providing humanitarian relief or achieving a sustainable peace in the region. But until Cairo makes concrete progress on democracy and human rights, Sisi will continue to prioritize his interests — the preservation of his own power chief among them — even when these contravene shared priorities in the bilateral relationship. And absent any accountability for his persistent resort to abusive and corrupt means, Sisi has little incentive to commit to tangible progress.

Fortunately, Congress now has the opportunity to seek this kind of accountability, and should block this tranche of military financing to Egypt. Indeed, last year Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) took exactly this step, acknowledging both the strategic relationship the U.S. and Egypt share as well as the imperative to hold Egypt accountable for its abuses. Senate leadership should take the same action this year, making delivery of the $320 million contingent on improvements in human rights and a cessation of practices of foreign interference and transnational repression.

Doing so would ensure that the U.S. does not reward Cairo’s continued failure to meet its rights and democracy obligations, and will send a clear message that these obligations are considered an inviolable component of American national security.

Allison McManus is the managing director for national security and international policy at the Center for American Progress.