Lost in the tidal wave of stories about the Sept. 10th debate between Trump and Harris, and the commemoration of the anniversary of 9/11, was this maddening story on the continued weakness of this White House on the international stage. The Biden-Harris administration has quietly decided to give Egypt $320 million in military aid, despite that country not meeting most of the benchmarks on human rights we demanded they meet, among other issues.
This is the first time in almost four years that the U.S. has given Egypt the full amount of $1.3 billion, some of which is granted with "no conditions." Here's how the numbers break down, a State Department spokesman told the NY Times:
The first, totaling $980 million, is subject to no conditions and granted automatically.
An additional $225 million is subject to a variety of human rights conditions — the ones that Mr. Blinken would not certify had been met but that he had waived on national security grounds.
A third, $95 million pot of money can be released only if the secretary of state finds that Egypt has made progress in the specific areas of releasing political prisoners, providing detainees with due process and “preventing the harassment and abuse of American citizens.” Mr. Blinken certified progress in these areas, the spokesman said.
The report continued:
For the first time under the Biden administration, the United States will send Egypt its full allotment of $1.3 billion in annual military aid, waiving human rights requirements on the spending mainly in recognition of Cairo’s efforts to reach a cease-fire deal in Gaza, U.S. officials said.
The decision, which the State Department notified Congress of on Wednesday, marks a striking shift for the administration. President Biden came into office promising “no blank checks” that would enable Egypt’s rights abuses, and in each of the past three years, his administration had withheld at least some of the congressionally mandated aid to Cairo, a close American ally.
...
In response to longtime concerns about human rights abuses in Egypt, U.S. law places conditions on about a quarter of the military aid to Egypt each year. To release it, the secretary of state must certify that Cairo has complied with a range of human rights requirements. (emphasis mine)
They're admitting that the African nation did not comply. And what did the State spokesman say Secretary of State Antony Blinken's excuse was for waving away the requirements this time: They are helping with the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal:
A State Department spokesman said the secretary, Antony J. Blinken, had found that Egypt had only partly met the human rights requirements but had overridden them, employing a legally permitted waiver “in the U.S. national security interest.”
Mr. Blinken’s decision was based on Egypt’s monthslong role as an intermediary between Hamas and Israel as the two sides try to negotiate a cease-fire deal that would free Israeli hostages in Gaza and allow more humanitarian aid into the territory, which borders Egypt’s Sinai Desert, the spokesman said.
They added that Egypt is also brokering a "cease-fire in neighboring Sudan’s civil war and its large-scale provision of aid to the Sudanese people."
Mariam Wahba, an analyst for The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), shared a laundry list of reasons why the U.S. government should have held the line on giving the full aid to Egypt--they simply have not reformed in any meaningful way:
The post reads:
- Bribed a U.S. Senator.
- Purchased Chinese fighter jets.
- Suppressed civil society and jailed political dissidents.
- Failed to protect religious and ethnic minorities.
- Allowed Hamas to rearm through the Philadelphi Corridor until the Israelis secured it in May.
And this list could go on. When will there be consequences?
That's a great question about Egypt reaping consequences for its actions that "undermine American interests." Unfortunately, Blinken and Biden-Harris are more interested in posturing for the international set than holding a country like Egypt to a reasonable standard of human decency. That's who they are--and it's the policy we'll continue to get if voters pull the lever for Vice President Harris to continue the Democrats' weak-kneed ways for another (at least) four years in the White House.