Oct 25, 2018

Democratic lawmakers are urging the Donald Trump administration to leverage its $1.3 billion military relationship with Egypt as the US ally cracks down on human rights.

In a letter obtained by Al-Monitor, Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del., Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., told Secretary of State Mike Pompeo they were “disappointed” by his August decision to waive rights conditions tied to nearly $200 million in US weapons assistance to Egypt. They worry Egypt will see the State Department’s waiver as a rubber stamp for attacks on civil liberties, including a new law that further restricts the activity of nongovernmental organizations.

“Our fear is that the Egyptian government will perceive your decision to release this funding as an endorsement of, or acquiescence in, its repressive policies,” the senators wrote to Pompeo. “We are also concerned that President [Abdel Fattah] al-Sisi will view your decision as further evidence that Egypt can wait out any future attempts by the US government to apply pressure.”

Click above to read the document

Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had previously delayed $195 million in 2017 military aid until Egypt resolved cases against dozens of NGO workers charged with operating illegally and scaled back diplomatic and defense ties with North Korea. The senators said they found Pompeo’s decision troubling because “the pressure appeared to be working,” after Egypt recently halted the implementation of parts of the 2017 NGO law and forced North Korea to cut back the size of its Cairo embassy.

“We had a window for using foreign assistance as a means for assessing long-held concerns in US-Egypt relations,” said Amr Kotb, advocacy director at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy in Washington. That window, he said, has “pretty much closed.”