crs_reports: RL33003

Congressional Research Service reports with summaries, authors, and topic classifications.

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RL33003 Egypt: Background and U.S. Relations 2026-02-25T05:00:00Z 2026-02-27T17:23:02Z Active Reports Jeremy M. Sharp Middle East & North Africa Historically, Egypt has been an important country for U.S. national security interests based on its geography, demography, and diplomatic posture. Egypt controls the Suez Canal, which opened in 1869 and is one of the world’s most critical maritime chokepoints, linking the Mediterranean and Red Seas. Its population of more than 108 million people makes Egypt by far the most populous Arabic-speaking country. Its majority Sunni Muslim population and institutions have transnational influence, and its large Coptic Christian minority is the Middle East region’s largest Christian population. Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel stands as one of the most significant diplomatic achievements for the promotion of Arab-Israeli peace. During the war in Gaza, Egypt worked with U.S. officials to serve as a mediator between Israel and Hamas. Egypt was one of several nations which played a key role in mediating the October 2025 ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. In October 2025, Egypt hosted the Sharm el Sheikh Peace Summit, where President Trump, President Sisi, and other world leaders jointly signed a declaration endorsing the ceasefire. In 2026, Egypt is experiencing a period of relative economic growth and revived regional relevancy as the Trump Administration looks to Egypt (and others) to help stabilize Gaza. After several years of economic disruption and a balance of payments crisis caused by both domestic policies and international events, Egypt’s debt crisis has eased due to outside economic support from international financial institutions and Arab Gulf states. The Egyptian economy, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), is now “showing signs of robust growth” In addition to Gaza, the Egyptian government is facing other foreign policy challenges. Egypt has had to contend with a politically divided Libya on its western border and a civil war in Sudan on its southern border. Conflict in Sudan and tensions with Ethiopia implicate the Nile River, a core Egyptian national security interest. In addition to insecurity on Egypt’s land borders, earlier Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and against Israel from Yemen redirected commercial shipping away from the Suez Canal, depriving Egypt of hard currency revenues for several years. Since 1946, the United States has provided Egypt with over $90 billion in bilateral foreign aid (calculated in historical dollars—not adjusted for inflation), with military and economic assistance increasing significantly after 1979. Annual appropriations legislation includes several conditions governing the release of these funds. Successive U.S. Administrations have justified aid to Egypt as an investment in regional stability, built primarily on long-running cooperation with the Egyptian military and on sustaining the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. All U.S. military aid to Egypt finances the procurement of weapons systems and services from U.S. defense contractors. P.L. 119-75, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026, provides $1.5 billion in total aid for Egypt, of which $1.375 billion is for Foreign Military Financing grant aid, an amount $75 million above what Egypt had been receiving as an FMF baseline for decades. The act also would withhold $320 million in FMF from obligation unless the Secretary of State can make several human rights-related determinations, which are no longer delineated in the law’s text, but are now found in the Joint Explanatory Statement accompanying P.L. 119-75. The Secretary of State may waive the withholding provision if the Secretary determines that “such funds are necessary for counterterrorism, border security, or nonproliferation programs or that it is otherwise important to the national security interest of the United States to do so, including a detailed justification for the use of such waiver and the reasons why any of the requirements cannot be met.” For FY2020-FY2023, the Biden Administration and Congress reprogrammed or withheld a total of $750 million in FMF originally designated for Egypt based on relevant provisions in appropriations law. https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/RL/PDF/RL33003/RL33003.128.pdf https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/RL/HTML/RL33003.html

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