Library

Early AccessStill fixing bugs

US–Egypt Relations

A peace treaty converted into an annual appropriation — $1.3 billion a year in military financing since 1987 — with a relationship that the United States has both walked out on and bought back.

6 documented events, earliest first. Every card carries its evidence tier and its own sources.

July 19, 1956

The United States withdraws Aswan Dam financing

EMPIRICAL

Secretary of State Dulles announced the withdrawal of the US offer to help finance the Aswan High Dam, citing difficulties with the financial arrangements; the underlying reasons were Nasser's recognition of communist China, his arms deal with the Soviet bloc, and his non-alignment. Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal a week later.

What it changed

Set off the Suez crisis and pushed Egypt toward Soviet financing of the dam and Soviet arms for the next sixteen years. The United States lost Egypt in 1956 by withholding money, and bought it back in 1978 by providing it — the two ends of this page are the same instrument used in opposite directions.

John Foster DullesGamal Abdel NasserDwight D. Eisenhower

Sources

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, vol. XV · declassified
Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, "The Feud Over Financing the Aswan High Dam" · academic

July 1972

Sadat expels Soviet military advisers

DOCUMENTED

Sadat ordered the departure of roughly 15,000 Soviet military advisers and personnel from Egypt, a year before the October war and before any reciprocal US move.

What it changed

The realignment began on the Egyptian side and preceded the American response by several years. The standard telling has Egypt won over after 1973; the record has Egypt choosing first.

Anwar Sadat

Sources

Standard reference on the Sadat presidency; contemporaneous reporting July 1972 · academic

September 17, 1978; treaty March 26, 1979

Camp David Accords and the Egypt–Israel peace treaty

EMPIRICAL

Thirteen days of US-brokered negotiation between Sadat and Begin produced the accords; the treaty followed in March. Egypt recovered Sinai and became the first Arab state to recognize Israel. The United States undertook to provide substantial annual assistance to both parties.

What it changed

Turned a war into an appropriation. From this point US aid to Egypt is a standing line tied to a peace, not a response to events — and its size has been argued in Congress in relation to Israel's ever since.

Jimmy CarterAnwar SadatMenachem Begin

Sources

US Department of State, Office of the Historian — Camp David Accords and the Arab-Israeli Peace Process · government

October 6, 1981

Sadat assassinated

EMPIRICAL

Sadat was killed by Islamist officers at a military parade marking the anniversary of the October war. Mubarak succeeded him and held the treaty.

What it changed

The peace survived the death of the man who made it, which is the moment it became structural rather than personal. The aid structure passed intact to a successor who governed for thirty years.

Anwar SadatHosni Mubarak

Sources

Contemporaneous record, October 1981 · news

1987 onward

Foreign Military Financing fixed at $1.3 billion

EMPIRICAL

US military financing to Egypt has been $1.3 billion a year in grants since 1987, the second-largest such line after Israel's. Economic assistance, once comparable, has declined to a fraction of that.

$1.3 billion a year in FMF grants since 1987; unchanged in nominal terms.

What it changed

The number has not moved in nearly forty years while its purchasing power has roughly halved — which is one reason both governments treat it as a symbol of the relationship rather than a sum.

Sources

Announced September 1, 1990

The United States forgives $7.1 billion in military debt

EMPIRICAL

For Egypt's support of the coalition against Iraq — including troops — the Bush administration forgave $7.1 billion Egypt owed for past military aid. Gulf states cancelled a further $7 billion.

What it changed

The clearest priced transaction on the page: a coalition contribution exchanged for debt relief in the same season. It is also the moment the aid structure was shown to be negotiable upward in a crisis.

George H. W. BushHosni Mubarak

Sources

Washington Post, "Bush to Forgive $7.1 Billion Egypt Owes for Military Aid" (September 1, 1990) · news

Standing arrangements rather than events — what the relationship is, as opposed to what happened to it. Where an arrangement runs in one direction, the card says so.

Defense·Camp David framework; fixed at $1.3 billion since 1987

Foreign Military Financing, $1.3 billion a year

IN FORCE

US-built equipment — F-16s, M1A1 tanks assembled in Egypt, Apaches — and their sustainment, funded by grant.

Who depends on whom

Both directions. The Egyptian military's inventory is American and depends on US sustainment; the aid is the price of the treaty and Suez Canal and overflight access, which the United States uses. Congress has conditioned portions on human-rights certifications since 2012, and waived the conditions most years.

Sources

Congressional Research Service, RL33003 · government

Legal·March 26, 1979

The Egypt–Israel peace treaty

IN FORCE

Peace, recognition, demilitarized zones in Sinai monitored by the Multinational Force and Observers, and Egyptian sovereignty over Sinai. The United States is not a party but is the guarantor in practice, through the aid.

Who depends on whom

The treaty is between Egypt and Israel; the money that holds it comes from Washington. That is the structure the whole page describes.

Sources

Treaty of Peace between the Arab Republic of Egypt and the State of Israel, March 26, 1979 · primary

Basing·By understanding, continuous since 1979

Suez Canal transit and overflight

IN FORCE

Expedited passage of US warships through the canal and overflight of Egyptian airspace — the operational return on the aid, used in every Gulf deployment since 1990.

Who depends on whom

Runs toward the United States. Egypt supplies position; the understanding is a convention rather than a published treaty term, as with British bases.

Sources

Congressional Research Service, RL33003 · government

Defense·1987

Major Non-NATO Ally status

IN FORCE

Procurement and cooperation privileges short of a treaty obligation. Egypt and Israel were designated in the same first cohort.

Sources

Major non-NATO ally — designations · academic

Legal·—

What does not exist: a US–Egypt defense treaty

CONTESTED

Nothing. As with Israel and Saudi Arabia, the relationship runs on appropriations, memoranda and understandings that Congress can change and has conditioned.

Sources

Congressional Research Service, RL33003 · government

The moments the relationship failed. These are on the page deliberately: a relations page that lists only cooperation is advocacy. A rupture is where the real terms become visible.

July–November 1956

Aswan, then Suez

EMPIRICAL

The United States withdrew dam financing on July 19; Nasser nationalized the canal on July 26; Britain, France and Israel attacked in October. The United States then forced its own allies to withdraw — see the UK and Israel pages — while its relationship with Egypt stayed broken for two decades.

What it revealed

That withholding money could start a war, and that the United States would side against its allies to end it without gaining Egypt. The relationship was lost by a financial decision and would be recovered by one.

Aftermath

Soviet financing of the dam; Soviet arms; sixteen years of alignment with Moscow until Sadat reversed it.

John Foster DullesGamal Abdel Nasser

Sources

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, vol. XV · declassified

October 9, 2013

Major weapons deliveries suspended after the coup and Rabaa

EMPIRICAL

After the July 2013 removal of President Morsi and the August killing of hundreds of protesters at Rabaa al-Adawiya, the Obama administration suspended delivery of F-16s, M1A1 tank kits, Harpoon missiles and Apache helicopters, and some cash assistance, while declining to call the removal a coup — which would have triggered a statutory cutoff.

What it revealed

That the aid could be paused over conduct, and that the executive would stop short of the legal finding that would have ended it. The suspension was calibrated to signal without severing.

Aftermath

Deliveries resumed in March 2015, with the administration citing regional security. Congress has since attached human-rights conditions to a portion of the FMF each year, usually waived.

Barack ObamaAbdel Fattah el-Sisi

Sources

Continuous relationship since 1978 — Camp David

There were relations before 1978, and one of them ended in a war. But the continuous, structural relationship — the one with a budget line — begins with the accords of September 1978 and the treaty of March 1979, when the United States undertook to fund both parties to a peace it had brokered. Everything since sits on that appropriation.

The Egyptian relationship is the Israeli one's mirror image and its origin: the same negotiation at Camp David produced the aid to both, and for forty years the two appropriations have moved together. What is documented: the 1956 withdrawal of Aswan Dam financing that precipitated the Suez war; Sadat's expulsion of Soviet advisers in 1972 and the realignment that followed; Camp David and the 1979 treaty; $1.3 billion a year in Foreign Military Financing, fixed since 1987; the forgiveness of $7.1 billion in military debt in 1990 for joining the Gulf coalition; and the 2013 suspension of major weapons deliveries after the coup and the Rabaa killings, lifted in 2015. The standing structure is aid as the instrument that holds a peace, and the open question is what four decades of it has done to the recipient. The ruptures ran both ways.

This page covers structure, not sentiment. Egypt and Israel share a page of origin — Camp David — and the section is built so the two can be read together. Neither is the other's footnote.

Library

Early AccessStill fixing bugs

All relations

US–Egypt Relations

A peace treaty converted into an annual appropriation — $1.3 billion a year in military financing since 1987 — with a relationship that the United States has both walked out on and bought back.

6 documented events, earliest first. Every card carries its evidence tier and its own sources.

July 19, 1956

The United States withdraws Aswan Dam financing

EMPIRICAL

What it changed

John Foster DullesGamal Abdel NasserDwight D. Eisenhower

Sources

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, vol. XV · declassified
Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, "The Feud Over Financing the Aswan High Dam" · academic

July 1972

Sadat expels Soviet military advisers

DOCUMENTED

Sadat ordered the departure of roughly 15,000 Soviet military advisers and personnel from Egypt, a year before the October war and before any reciprocal US move.

What it changed

The realignment began on the Egyptian side and preceded the American response by several years. The standard telling has Egypt won over after 1973; the record has Egypt choosing first.

Anwar Sadat

Sources

Standard reference on the Sadat presidency; contemporaneous reporting July 1972 · academic

September 17, 1978; treaty March 26, 1979

Camp David Accords and the Egypt–Israel peace treaty

EMPIRICAL

What it changed

Jimmy CarterAnwar SadatMenachem Begin

Sources

US Department of State, Office of the Historian — Camp David Accords and the Arab-Israeli Peace Process · government

October 6, 1981

Sadat assassinated

EMPIRICAL

Sadat was killed by Islamist officers at a military parade marking the anniversary of the October war. Mubarak succeeded him and held the treaty.

What it changed

The peace survived the death of the man who made it, which is the moment it became structural rather than personal. The aid structure passed intact to a successor who governed for thirty years.

Anwar SadatHosni Mubarak

Sources

Contemporaneous record, October 1981 · news

1987 onward

Foreign Military Financing fixed at $1.3 billion

EMPIRICAL

$1.3 billion a year in FMF grants since 1987; unchanged in nominal terms.

What it changed

The number has not moved in nearly forty years while its purchasing power has roughly halved — which is one reason both governments treat it as a symbol of the relationship rather than a sum.

Sources

Announced September 1, 1990

The United States forgives $7.1 billion in military debt

EMPIRICAL

For Egypt's support of the coalition against Iraq — including troops — the Bush administration forgave $7.1 billion Egypt owed for past military aid. Gulf states cancelled a further $7 billion.

What it changed

George H. W. BushHosni Mubarak

Sources

Washington Post, "Bush to Forgive $7.1 Billion Egypt Owes for Military Aid" (September 1, 1990) · news

Standing arrangements rather than events — what the relationship is, as opposed to what happened to it. Where an arrangement runs in one direction, the card says so.

Defense·Camp David framework; fixed at $1.3 billion since 1987

Foreign Military Financing, $1.3 billion a year

IN FORCE

US-built equipment — F-16s, M1A1 tanks assembled in Egypt, Apaches — and their sustainment, funded by grant.

Who depends on whom

Sources

Congressional Research Service, RL33003 · government

Legal·March 26, 1979

The Egypt–Israel peace treaty

IN FORCE

Who depends on whom

The treaty is between Egypt and Israel; the money that holds it comes from Washington. That is the structure the whole page describes.

Sources

Treaty of Peace between the Arab Republic of Egypt and the State of Israel, March 26, 1979 · primary

Basing·By understanding, continuous since 1979

Suez Canal transit and overflight

IN FORCE

Expedited passage of US warships through the canal and overflight of Egyptian airspace — the operational return on the aid, used in every Gulf deployment since 1990.

Who depends on whom

Runs toward the United States. Egypt supplies position; the understanding is a convention rather than a published treaty term, as with British bases.

Sources

Congressional Research Service, RL33003 · government

Defense·1987

Major Non-NATO Ally status

IN FORCE

Procurement and cooperation privileges short of a treaty obligation. Egypt and Israel were designated in the same first cohort.

Sources

Major non-NATO ally — designations · academic

Legal·—

What does not exist: a US–Egypt defense treaty

CONTESTED

Nothing. As with Israel and Saudi Arabia, the relationship runs on appropriations, memoranda and understandings that Congress can change and has conditioned.

Sources

Congressional Research Service, RL33003 · government

The moments the relationship failed. These are on the page deliberately: a relations page that lists only cooperation is advocacy. A rupture is where the real terms become visible.

July–November 1956

Aswan, then Suez

EMPIRICAL

What it revealed

Aftermath

Soviet financing of the dam; Soviet arms; sixteen years of alignment with Moscow until Sadat reversed it.

John Foster DullesGamal Abdel Nasser

Sources

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, vol. XV · declassified

October 9, 2013

Major weapons deliveries suspended after the coup and Rabaa

EMPIRICAL

What it revealed

That the aid could be paused over conduct, and that the executive would stop short of the legal finding that would have ended it. The suspension was calibrated to signal without severing.

Aftermath

Deliveries resumed in March 2015, with the administration citing regional security. Congress has since attached human-rights conditions to a portion of the FMF each year, usually waived.

Barack ObamaAbdel Fattah el-Sisi

Sources

Continuous relationship since 1978 — Camp David

This page covers structure, not sentiment. Egypt and Israel share a page of origin — Camp David — and the section is built so the two can be read together. Neither is the other's footnote.

US–Egypt Relations — UET Library

US–Egypt Relations

The United States withdraws Aswan Dam financing

Sadat expels Soviet military advisers

Camp David Accords and the Egypt–Israel peace treaty

Sadat assassinated

Foreign Military Financing fixed at $1.3 billion

The United States forgives $7.1 billion in military debt

Foreign Military Financing, $1.3 billion a year

The Egypt–Israel peace treaty

Suez Canal transit and overflight

Major Non-NATO Ally status

What does not exist: a US–Egypt defense treaty

Aswan, then Suez

Major weapons deliveries suspended after the coup and Rabaa

What has forty years of a fixed aid line done to the Egyptian state?

Would Egypt keep the treaty if the aid stopped?

What are the actual terms of Suez transit and overflight?

US–Egypt Relations

The United States withdraws Aswan Dam financing

Sadat expels Soviet military advisers

Camp David Accords and the Egypt–Israel peace treaty

Sadat assassinated

Foreign Military Financing fixed at $1.3 billion

The United States forgives $7.1 billion in military debt

Foreign Military Financing, $1.3 billion a year

The Egypt–Israel peace treaty

Suez Canal transit and overflight

Major Non-NATO Ally status

What does not exist: a US–Egypt defense treaty

Aswan, then Suez

Major weapons deliveries suspended after the coup and Rabaa

What has forty years of a fixed aid line done to the Egyptian state?

Would Egypt keep the treaty if the aid stopped?

What are the actual terms of Suez transit and overflight?