Posts baselessly claim US ends military aid to Egypt for Horn of Africa tensions

AFP

25-03-2025

'Egypt is devastated,' read an Amharic post published on March 6, 2025, claiming that 'America has decided to cut off military aid to Egypt' as a result of its 'destabilising activities in the Horn of Africa'.
Image
Screenshot of the misleading post, taken on March 25, 2025
The post included photos of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and US President Donald Trump.
Similar posts shared the same claim here and here on Facebook.
Egypt has long been at loggerheads with Ethiopia over the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), a multimillion-dollar project on the Nile River (archived here).
Egypt, which relies on the Nile for about 97 percent of its irrigation and drinking water, argues the dam is a threat to its survival. Ethiopia sees the GERD as an essential project for its national development (archived here).
Despite talks, there has been no agreement to end the diplomatic stalemate.
Relations between the two were further complicated in August 2024 when Egypt sent defence equipment to Somalia months after Ethiopia signed a maritime deal with the breakaway territory of Somaliland (archived here). Somalia was incensed with Ethiopia as it claimed sovereignty over Somaliland.
However, the claim that the US has ended military aid to Egypt because it was causing upheaval in the Horn of Africa is misleading.
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The US embassy in Addis Ababa rejected the claim as false.
'There are no official statements from the U.S. government to indicate this claim,' the embassy said in an email sent to AFP Fact Check on March 10, 2025.
Despite sweeping orders from Trump to slash foreign aid globally, Egypt and Israel were spared the wholesale cuts (archived here).
The US has given Egypt about $1.4 billion in annual military aid since 1979 (see here, here and here) when the Camp David Accords were signed (archived here, here and here).
Brokered by the late US President Jimmy Carter, the Camp David Accords saw Israel return the vast Sinai Peninsula to Egypt following occupation in war years earlier. Cairo subsequently became a major recipient of US military aid together with Israel (archived here).
There have been occasions when some of this funding was held back (here and here), primarily for human rights violations (archived here and here).
Last month, Trump threatened to withhold aid to Egypt and Jordan after both countries rejected his plan to resettle Palestinians from Gaza (archived here).
Qatari media outlet Al Araby Al Jadeed published a report on March 12, 2025, claiming the US had notified Egypt about reducing military aid in 2026 (archived here).
Citing an unnamed source in Egypt, the report said: 'The US administration recently informed Cairo of its decision to reduce military aid to the Egyptian army.'
'However, the notification did not specify the exact percentage of the cut, which is expected to be determined later after consultations within the relevant US administration entities,' read part of the report translated from Arabic.