The visit of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to Washington has been postponed indefinitely, according to a report by Al Arabiya on Tuesday. The original plan was for Sisi to travel to the US on February 18, but the visit was rescheduled due to Cairo’s opposition to US President Donald Trump’s plans to relocate the Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Egypt and Jordan, Al Arabiya reported.
Trump is now using the threat of withholding US financial aid and military assistance to Egypt and Jordan as a pressure tactic. In an interview with Fox News on Monday, Trump stated that if Egypt and Jordan do not agree to the relocation of Palestinians to their territories, he can withhold the aid. Egypt has received military aid from the US for nearly five decades, amounting to $1.2 billion annually, as a reward for the 1978 peace treaty with Israel. Additionally, the US provides $300 million in funding, for example, to the American University in Cairo.
High-ranking Egyptian officials, who spoke to Al Arabiya, described the relations with Washington as the “most strained in three decades” and Sisi stated at the end of January that Egypt cannot “participate in the injustice of relocating the Palestinian people” according to the local news site Ahram Online.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II reinforced his opposition to the relocation of the population from the Gaza Strip during his meeting with Trump in Washington on Tuesday. He told the US President that he “expressed his firm rejection of the relocation of Palestinians” from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and emphasized that this is a “common Arab position.” During the meeting at the White House, Abdullah II also offered to take in 2,000 Palestinian children suffering from illnesses.