Politics

As Trump visited the Gulf, Egypt was busy meeting with its new friends

These days, Cairo looks more to Beijing and Moscow than to Washington, a policy change with its roots in the toppling of Hosni Mubarak more than a decade ago.

Mikhail METZEL / AFP

Russia's President Vladimir Putin greets Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi prior to the Victory Day military parade in Moscow on May 9, 2025.

As Trump visited the Gulf, Egypt was busy meeting with its new friends

Amr Emam

last update on 20 May 2025

Despite the overt business focus of US President Donald Trump’s visit to the Middle East this month, he likely chose this as his first official second-term foray to drive home a message: America has returned to the region.

The most significant moment of the tour came on 15 May, when he visited US forces based at Qatar’s Al Udeid Air Base and reaffirmed his readiness to use force to defend American partners if need be. “We are going to protect this country,” Trump said of Qatar at a business roundtable, noting its geographical proximity to Iran.

Who are Washington’s other close regional allies these days? For decades, Egypt—a major recipient of US military aid—would have featured high on that list, but days earlier, Egyptian leaders were in Russia’s capital to help President Vladimir Putin mark the country’s Victory Day parade in Moscow’s Red Square. Alongside Putin at this event was Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Angelos Tzortzinis / AFP — Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro, President of the Republic of Congo Denis Sassou Nguesso and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, attend a WWII commemoration ceremony in central Moscow on May 9, 2025.

New friends, new jets

Egypt’s attendance will not have gone unnoticed by the US State Department, the only other Middle Eastern delegation having been that of Palestine. A short time later, Egyptian air force commanders celebrated a 45-year relationship with the Chinese state-owned defence company CATIC, which has just supplied Egypt with its advanced Chengdu J-10 fighter jets.

These planes showed their potency when used in combat for the first time earlier this month. Flown by Pakistan’s air force pilots, the J-10s fired Chinese-made missiles and downed several Indian jets over Kashmir, according to statements from Pakistan’s military.

The J-10s arrived in Egypt in September last year to take part in the first edition of the Egypt International Air Show. The same aircraft arrived at an airbase in central Egypt last month to take part in an unprecedented air exercise with the Egyptian air force.

None of this is happening in a vacuum. Egypt officially joined the BRICS group (led by China and Russia) in January 2024, as did Iran. Military exercises with China fit into a broad and dramatic change to regional alliances, with repercussions likely to be felt for decades.

AFP — The presidents of Egypt, South Africa, China, Russia, UAE, and Iran, the prime ministers of Ethiopia and India and Brazil's foreign minister pose for a family photo during the BRICS summit in Kazan on October 23, 2024.

Following the money

Egypt has a huge population of around 114 million, comprising roughly a third of the combined population of all Arab states. Thanks to US military aid since Cairo signed a peace deal with Israel in 1979, it also has one of the Arab world's most powerful militaries. Yet it is now clearly drifting away from the American orbit and into the arms of Russia and China.

At its core, Cairo wants comprehensive partnerships that go beyond weaponry but instead open the gates to capital and investment in other economic sectors.

Egypt is no stranger to either Russia or China. The Egyptian air force already includes Russian fighter jets and air defence systems, and Moscow is helping Egypt build a giant nuclear power plant and a big new industrial zone in the Suez Canal region, to which China is also contributing.

China is also investing in Egypt's New Administrative Capital. In terms of trade, both Chinese and Russian products are sold in Egyptian markets. Culturally, Egyptians are learning the Russian language, with Egyptian students seeking to study at Russian universities.

Days before Donald Trump's Middle East visit, Egyptian leaders were in Moscow with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping

An old grievance

Egypt's current generation of decision-makers has come to feel that the US is no longer a reliable ally. This view was reinforced recently when Trump demanded that Egypt take in Palestinian refugees from the Gaza Strip and pay for US airstrikes against the Houthi militia in Yemen (whose attacks on Western shipping have led to reduced Suez Canal transit fees for Cairo).

In February this year, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi demonstrated his displeasure when he turned down Trump's White House invitation, but in truth, Egypt's tilt eastwards does not derive from Trump's demands or US bias towards Israel, which wants Gaza to become Egypt's problem.

El-Sisi's US grudge is old. Back in August 2013, when Sisi was Egypt's defence minister, he told a journalist from The Washington Post that the US had turned its back on Egyptians. His people "won't forget this," he said, referring to former US President Barack Obama's embrace of the 'Arab Spring' revolutions that toppled Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, among others.

This led to the Muslim Brotherhood's subsequent election win, which later led to violence on Egyptian streets, with el-Sisi leading the army's ousting of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in June 2013. Ever since, the direction of Egypt's foreign policy has substantiated el-Sisi's August 2013 remarks.

In 2014, Egypt fought a branch of the Islamic State in the Sinai Peninsula, but rather than show its appreciation, the US withheld military equipment and financial aid, even threatening to cancel the annual military assistance it had given Egypt since it signed the peace treaty with Israel in 1979.

Another source of tension in US-Egypt relations has been a more recent US plan for a new trade route linking India with the Middle East and Europe, to counter China's global infrastructure programme known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This angered Cairo, as it bypasses Egypt's Suez Canal.

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, US President Joe Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen attend a session as part of the G20 summit.

Egypt's recent policy reorientation aims not for a total breakaway from the US but for more balanced foreign relations. Finding alternatives to the US can help Egypt maintain a degree of independence. In this context, Russia and China have much to offer—and with fewer strings attached.

It is not lost on Egypt that China and Russia are seeking to expand their influence in the region, particularly given the perceived US withdrawal from an arena considered burdensome by some recent US presidents.

A spoke in the wheel

Egypt also knows that it is an important stop in China's BRI, a latter-day 'Silk Road,' linking China with the world's trading hubs in a network comprising ports, highways, industrial zones, and shipping routes. In short, Egypt is China's gateway into Africa and the Arab world.

For Russia, Egypt is also an important anchor on the Mediterranean and in North Africa, especially since the downfall of President Bashar al-Assad, the longtime ruler of Moscow's former client state, Syria. The Kremlin will know that a Russian airbase and naval base along Syria's Mediterranean coast may no longer be long-term assets.

All of which brings us back to Trump's Middle East visit this month and the message that the US is returning to the region. In doing so, it may not be returning to Egypt. That would be a mistake of Washington's own making.

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