Observers view Trump as the most coinvent option for Egypt’s Sisi in the current phase. [Getty]
Following the victory of former republican president Donald Trump over his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris in the US presidential election, his comeback has been viewed by observers as extremely convenient for the Egyptian regime.
President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi was among the first world leaders to congratulate Trump even before the final results were officially declared.
On Wednesday morning, Sisi congratulated his old ally on social media, wishing him the best of luck and success in fulfilling the interests of the American people.
“We look forward to working together to….achieve peace, main regional stability, and boost the strategic partnership between Egypt and the US and among their friendly peoples….which we hope to continue amid the delicate circumstances the world is surviving,” Sisi posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Later in the evening, during a phone call that followed the official announcement of the poll results, Sisi expressed Egypt’s interest to resume working with Trump in his new term in view of the strategic nature of the decades-long bilateral ties.
According to the official website of the Egyptian presidency, Sisi further empathised Egypt’s eagerness to cooperate with the US in achieving stability, peace and development on the bilateral and the regional levels.
Egyptian high-profile political sociologist Dr Said Sadek views Sisi’s acclaim for Trump as “normal and expected.”
“Both Trump and Sisi have always got along very well. Sisi is known for having better relations with Republicans than Democrats,” Sadek told The New Arab.
But the Trump-Sisi rapprochement has always been subject to debate, commonly making news headlines.
Earlier in 2019, Trump sparked controversy by yelling out, “Where’s my favourite dictator?” in reference to Sisi during the G7 summit held in France, where he waited for him to arrive at a meeting. At that time, Trump applauded Sisi and his leadership for being “a very tough man.”
“But he’s also a good man, and he’s done a fantastic job in Egypt. Not easy,” Trump said on the sidelines of the event.
The former president had, nonetheless, satirised his Egyptian counterpart a year later, allegedly referring to him as “a f****** killer”, as claimed by Bob Woodward in his tell-all biography on the US president, Fear: Trump in the White House.
‘No difference’
Most recently, in August, a report by The Washington Post revealed that the Egyptian government may have allegedly offered Trump $10 million in cash in 2017 to boost his election campaign. The report further suggested that Trump’s attorney general back then, William Bar, allegedly quashed the investigation into the allegations.
However, for Sisi, he remains seems the most pragmatic option guaranteeing his survival, even though the outgoing Joe Biden’s previous threats of offering “no blank cheques” to “Trump’s favourite dictator” had eventually turned out to be a fiasco during his electoral campaign back in 2020.
The US aid offered to Egypt in different forms has persisted during Biden’s reign, though, as Egypt’s human rights record under Sisi, has, arguably, continued to deteriorate.
“Biden’s mention of human rights was just used for the sake of electoral propaganda. The United States use of the UN veto power to support Israel during the onslaught on Gaza proved otherwise, that the notion of human rights was used as a blackmail tool not really applicable on the ground,” Sadek explained.
Renowned Egyptian human rights defender Sherif Azer could not agree more.
“Trump is no different from his soon-to-be predecessor, Biden,” Azer, also a PhD researcher of international law at the University of York, told TNA.
“Egypt has already established strong ties with the US since entering into a peace treaty with Israel in the late 1970s during the era of late President Anwar Sadat. No Egyptian or American president will change that,” Azer noted.
“But under Trump, Egypt can more easily evade any commitments that have to do with human rights and even avoid verbal reprimanding,” he added.
Trump frequently voiced support for Sisi throughout his time in power against all the odds as his administration had turned a blind eye to hundreds of documented violations committed against the opposition and activists in Egypt, ignoring reports released by the US State Department, Human Rights Watch and other groups.
“In a nutshell, the Egypt-US relations are likely to maintain a status quo. However, democrats may criticise the human rights situation in a bid to save face,” Azer noted. Â
Egyptian social media users, meanwhile, resorted to sarcasm, using the hashtag “the US got back with its ex” on social media platforms in reference to Trump’s comeback.
In their posts, they mostly said they expected no difference between any US president on the US policy towards the Middle East, the human rights record in Egypt or the Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
