CAIRO – 25 March 2017: The relationship between Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi and recently inaugurated American President Donald Trump got off to a good start. “There was good chemistry there,” Trump said after his first official encounter with Sisi in New York, as they met during the electoral campaign. “He is a fantastic guy.”
Sisi later became the first Arab leader to congratulate Trump on his electoral victory, followed by a phone call where the latter was both supportive of the Egyptian leadership and open for future cooperation, the Egyptian Presidency stated.
Statements from both sides have reflected a relative agreement and strong correlation between the two leaders since then, culminating into Trump’s official invitation to his Egyptian counterpart to visit Washington D.C.; a state visit from Egypt to the U.S. has been awaited for almost a decade, since former President Hosni Mubarak last visited in 2009.
Sisi’s visit, taking place the first week of April, carries a strong significance for both sides. However, experts, public figures and ordinary citizens alike are still at odds about the potential ramifications of Trump’s rule … just as most of the world has been from the moment Trump’s victory was announced.
The day the election results were announced, a number of Egyptian figures voiced their concerns through their social media accounts.
“Trump’s victory confirms the superiority of interest, money and fear,”
Former Egyptian Vice President Mohamed ElBaradei urged people to fully grasp Trump’s statements about Islam, and called for “a bit of dignity,” on his Twitter account, his chosen platform of public interface since he resigned and left Egypt three years ago.
Advocating a different perspective, Egyptian businessman and media tycoon Naguib Sawiris
during the electoral campaign, calling him “a successful entrepreneur” who “did well for himself will do well for America.”
Even now that Trump has been in power for months, there is still a near consensus among Egyptian experts that it is almost impossible to make an absolute prediction for the future of U.S.-Egypt relations.
Dr. Ahmed Abd Rabou, a visiting scholar at the Middle East Studies Center of the University of Denver, told Egypt Today, “We should not build a long-term future scenario since Trump is currently unstable and has had a very turbulent first month in power.”
Amr Adly, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center and political economy professor at The American University in Cairo (AUC), concurred. He told Egypt Today “it is extremely hard to predict what will happen with the new transformation presented by Trump, which is bigger than Trump himself.”
“This is a man from outside the establishment and the entrenched interests that had determined the foreign policies with some kind on continuity in the Republican Party and the republican administrations,” Adly clarified.
But what does Trump actually say about Egypt?
The new American president has repeatedly expressed his dislike of Islamists, chiding the U.S. for having “abandoned Mubarak” in the January 25 Revolution
And less than a year ago, Trump associated Egypt with terrorism between the lines when he immediately attributed
’s crash to a terrorist attack, without even waiting for the investigations to go through.
Yet the situation has recently changed, as the American President is clearly a fan of the current Egyptian leader.
In their first phone call, where Sisi congratulated Trump on his victory, the latter “commended the Egyptian president for his courageous steps to address Egypt’s economic problems,” committed to “continuing military assistance to Egypt,” and expressed his willingness to “deepen bilateral relations” between the two countries,
Does this mean the future heralds warmer U.S.-Egypt relations in the near future?
Dr. Said El Lawendi, expert of International Relations at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, believes there is indeed a great deal of “coordination and harmony” between the two countries today, “contrary to what it was in Obama’s time.”
In an interview with Egypt Today, Lawendi anticipated that under Trump’s rule Egypt would see “more openness” and “no interference in its internal affairs,” adding that Trump’s invitation for Sisi to visit Washington is the clearest evidence of harmony between the two countries.
According to Abd Rabou, a scenario of “good and positive relations with the U.S.” is indeed the most plausible one. This scenario is built on “Trump’s full trust in Sisi’s regime and his strategy of cornering Iran for the sake of the Saudis, Israelis, and Egyptians,” Abd Rabou explained, adding, “Trump seems also to count on Egypt for the peace process in the Middle East.”
However, Abd Rabou still mentioned a second less probable scenario; that “Trump flips on Egypt due to sudden changes in his political equation in America.”
“In this case, relations with Egypt might become cold again [as they were] under Obama,” Abd Rabou said, citing “the irrational context in the U.S. decision-making process.”
Creative Commons via Wikimedia Commons/Gage Skidmore
Other scholars disagree on the significance of Trump’s initial support of Sisi and believe Egyptians should not expect much of a difference in American influence in the country.
Dr. Ashraf El Sherif, a professor of political science at the American University in Cairo, told Egypt Today, “these phone calls and meetings do not have so much of a significance …Trump called Sisi and did not call Germany’s [Chancellor Angela] Merkel, which does not mean that Sisi is more important than the latter.”
Adly echoed El Sherif’s opinion, saying Egypt lies “in the periphery of the EU and the Gulf," adding that the only influence would be the continuity or the expansion of military aid, which is more relevant to security than the economy.
“It is in the interest of the current Egyptian administration that the relations with the U.S. be purely about security and based on combatting political Islam,” Adly said, explaining that Trump is also interested in security cooperation with Egypt, due to its role in containing ISIS and Hamas.
In an attempt to predict the differences between Trump and his predecessor Barack Obama regarding the region, Adly said, “It is very unlikely that Trump will reengage in the Middle East … because of financial restrictions.”
“The U.S.’s imperial role as a world super power is no longer possible,” Adly said, explaining that Trump will probably continue Obama’s foreign relations track by not getting too involved, while rebuilding regional alliances that, in Adly’s opinion, were less important to Obama, including Saudi Arabia, Israel and Egypt.
A billionaire businessman and very outspoken about his controversial perspective of minorities, foreign policy, and the Middle East in specific, Trump was not a typical presidential candidate throughout the lengthy campaign. Now that he is in power, more suspicions and confusion have arisen, in Egypt and almost everywhere in the world.
The fact that there is nothing close to a consensus, even among experts, indicates that all scenarios are still valid. As with many domestic issues, ultimately Trump’s foreign policy – and foreign impact – is yet in its infancy, and the results remain to be seen.
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