NEWS: US
US cancel a $130 million military aid to Egypte.

The Biden admin­is­tra­tion announced it was can­cel­ing $130 mil­lion in mil­i­tary aid to Egypt on human rights grounds, just days after the Unit­ed States approved a mas­sive arms sale from $2.5 bil­lion domestically.

The State Depart­ment said Fri­day that Egypt had not met the con­di­tions to receive the $130 mil­lion in for­eign mil­i­tary fund­ing sus­pend­ed since Sep­tem­ber. He said the mon­ey would be trans­ferred to oth­er pro­grams, but did not elaborate.

In announc­ing the can­cel­la­tion, the depart­ment made no men­tion of the $2.5 bil­lion sale of mil­i­tary trans­port planes and radar sys­tems it approved on Tues­day; the announce­ment of this agree­ment had made no men­tion of the frozen $130 million.

Sec­re­tary of State Antony Blinken in Sep­tem­ber approved the release of $300 mil­lion in for­eign mil­i­tary fund­ing to Egypt, but with­held an addi­tion­al $130 mil­lion unless the gov­ern­ment addressed “spe­cif­ic con­di­tions relat­ed to rights rights” by the end of January.

“The dead­line for ful­fill­ing these con­di­tions will soon pass,” the min­istry said. “The [Egypt­ian gov­ern­ment] has made notable progress on the con­di­tions, but to date has not met all of them. There­fore, after Jan­u­ary 30, the Sec­re­tary intends to repro­gram the $130 mil­lion to oth­er nation­al secu­ri­ty priorities.

Asked about the appar­ent incon­sis­ten­cy, US offi­cials said the mil­i­tary aid and arms sales were unrelated.

They say Egypt will bear the cost of the $2.2 bil­lion pur­chase of the 12 C‑130 Super Her­cules trans­port planes as well as air defense radar sys­tems worth an esti­mat­ed $355 million.

Large-scale crack­down on dis­sent
Con­gres­sion­al Democ­rats who had urged Blinken not to approve the $130 mil­lion in aid were pleased with Fri­day’s deci­sion but did not address the arms sale that dwarfs the amount of aid withheld.

“I’m glad the Biden admin­is­tra­tion held its own by repro­gram­ming these funds,” said Sen. Chris Mur­phy of Connecticut.

“It sends the impor­tant mes­sage over­seas that we will back our com­mit­ment to human rights with action and that the days of dic­ta­tors receiv­ing blank checks from Amer­i­ca are over.”

On Tues­day, the State Depart­ment announced the $2.5 bil­lion arms sale, say­ing it would “sup­port the for­eign pol­i­cy and nation­al secu­ri­ty of the Unit­ed States by help­ing to improve the secu­ri­ty of a great coun­try. non-NATO ally which con­tin­ues to be an impor­tant strate­gic point”. part­ner in the Mid­dle East.

“We main­tain that our bilat­er­al rela­tion­ship with Egypt will be stronger and that U.S. inter­ests will be bet­ter served, thanks to the Unit­ed States’ con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to advanc­ing our nation­al secu­ri­ty inter­ests, includ­ing address­ing our con­cerns in mat­ter of human rights,’ the depart­ment said.