House ratchets up pressure on Egypt
The House’s annual foreign aid bill would place conditions on military aid.
After years of giving Egypt a pass on its human rights record, House lawmakers are starting to tighten the purse strings on Cairo.
The foreign aid spending bill for fiscal year 2020, which the House Appropriations Committee advanced 29-23 Thursday, contains language that would condition $260 million in annual military aid to progress on human rights and democracy. Egypt receives $1.3 billion in annual US military aid.
In recent years, House appropriators had resisted their Senate colleagues’ demands to restrict Egyptian aid. But this year’s bill indicates that the committee’s new chairwoman, Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., is ready to take a tougher line on the crackdown on dissident voices under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
“Sometimes only a friend can send a tough message,” Lowey told Al-Monitor in an e-mailed statement.
