Foreign Policy: After the death of an American citizen ... Washington is considering reducing military aid to Egypt

The US State Department recently raised the idea of ​​cutting a large portion of $ 1.3 billion in annual military aid to Egypt after the death of a US citizen in an Egyptian prison in January, four sources familiar with the matter reported to Foreign Policy.

In a memo sent by the Office of the Near East Affairs Agency to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in early March, a diplomatic proposal to cut up to $ 300 million in US military aid to Egypt due to the death of Mustafa Qasim, a citizen of American and Egyptian nationality, had appealed to the president American Donald Trump to no avail to secure his release in his final days.

The magazine said the move could spark an attempt in Congress to punish Egypt, a long-time strategic ally of the United States. She referred to a letter sent late last month, in which Democrat Senators Patrick Leahy and Chris Van Hallen urged Foreign Minister Pompeo to cut $ 300 million in military aid to Cairo and punish any Egyptian "directly or indirectly responsible" for Qasim prison and his death.

Foreign Policy suggested that during his two-year tenure, Pompeo twice decided to neglect human rights considerations in order to approve military aid to Egypt, prompting some experts to question whether the Trump administration would make any cuts even after the death of an American citizen.

The magazine commented that if the US administration decided to punish Egypt for Qassem’s death, it would be a hotbed of tension in an intimate relationship that spanned four decades. Under Trump, the United States was largely reluctant to punish Egypt, the second largest recipient of US military aid.

She added that Qassem defenders were concerned that the delay in the Trump administration's response indicated that it was unwilling to take action. But Democratic lawmakers in the US parliament have used the Qasim case as another example of increasing human rights violations in Cairo since Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi’s seizure of power.

The magazine referred to a letter that Leahy and Van Hallen had sent to Pompeo on February 25, saying "We know that the United States and Egypt share some important interests ... and if we continue to approach matters as they are, we will send a dangerous message that we will not use our influence to help Americans are unjustly imprisoned in Egypt, including many of them in Egyptian prisons today, and we will not hold the Egyptian government accountable when it commits such grave violations against the Americans. "

She added that Leahy and Van Lohan had written a letter similar to Trump on January 16, but they had not received a response.

The thrust of the message was, "Some may argue that applying the law in this way does not go far enough, because the Sisi government will still receive $ 2 billion in US military aid in the fiscal years 2019 and 2020."

"Nevertheless, it will send an important message to the effect that American assistance is not a benefit, that the US government is serious about protecting the rights and safety of American citizens, and that we reject the efforts of the Sisi government to undermine the rule of law in Egypt."

The magazine concluded that it is unclear to what extent the legislators' appeal has affected the recommendations of the Office for Near East Affairs, as they have yet to receive an official response from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.