The United States exempts $320 million in military aid to Egypt from human rights restrictions

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio exempted $320 million in military aid to Egypt from a restriction that had previously led to it being withheld due to human rights concerns.

The American minister referred to Egypt's assistance in dealing with Iran since the outbreak of war earlier this year. The US State Department said that Rubio agreed to grant the exemption “out of concern for the national security interests of the United States.”

The ministry added that the decision “reflects Egypt’s importance to US national security interests, as well as the tangible security cooperation that Egypt provides to the United States.”

Timothy Kaldas, deputy director of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy in the United States, believes that resorting to an exemption justified by national security considerations is “an admission that Egypt has not met the human rights conditions required to obtain military funding.”

In an interview with DW Arabia, he said, "This exemption had to be used so that Egypt could obtain the amount whose disbursement was conditional on meeting those conditions."

Have human rights conditions succeeded?

Egypt began receiving significant American support following the signing of the peace treaty with Israel in 1979, and has received US military aid amounting to approximately $1.3 billion annually since the late 1980s.

Some of this aid is subject to conditions related to human rights and democracy, and can be exempted for reasons related to national security. Withholding funds, including during the era of former US President Joe Biden, had previously strained relations between Cairo and Washington.

According to an accompanying memorandum justifying the decision, this portion of military aid was deemed “necessary for counterterrorism, border security, or nonproliferation programs, or otherwise important to the national security interests of the United States.”

The decision coincided with the Egyptian police’s arrest this week of six journalists working for the “Mtsadeqesh” media platform specializing in verifying information and investigative journalism, accusing them of publishing false information on behalf of the banned “Muslim Brotherhood,” which the platform denied.

Despite the exemption, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that the Trump administration will continue to raise human rights issues within the framework of its dialogue with Egypt regarding “all the issues included in our bilateral relations.”

Timothy Kaldas said that while Western officials prefer to say that “conditions related to human rights do not achieve results, the human rights conditions associated with American military aid to Egypt have contributed over the years to the release of many political prisoners.”

He pointed out that when these conditions are actually applied and enforced, they “gain greater credibility and influence.”

The Iran War... Egypt's importance has increased

The memorandum, dated September 4 and signed by Rubio, said, “Exercising this exemption authority is necessary for the relationship between the United States and Egypt and for American national security priorities, especially in light of the useful role that Egypt played following Operation Epic of Rage,” referring to the Iran war.

Egypt played a pivotal role in ceasefire negotiations related to military operations in Gaza, including an agreement reached in October 2025.

Egypt plays a role in mediation efforts to end the war in cooperation with Qatar, Pakistan, and Turkey, while its ports contribute to alleviating some of the repercussions left by the disruption of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz on the global energy market.

In an article published by the Carnegie Endowment for Middle East Peace last April, Middle Eastern affairs expert Angie Omar said, “Egypt’s quiet role, along with Turkey and Pakistan, in bringing the views of Washington and Tehran closer together has returned it to the position it previously occupied as a player capable of managing crises through behind-the-scenes diplomatic initiatives.” She added that diplomatic reports indicate that Egypt's contribution to "reaching a ceasefire was through extensive intelligence communications, an approach that Cairo has adopted for decades in managing crises."

In turn, Hussein Bayoumi, an independent economics and foreign policy analyst for the Middle East in Brussels, said that Egypt remains “an important ally of the United States, especially in light of the current tensions in the Middle East. But more importantly, the current American administration does not put pressure on Egypt in the human rights file among its priorities.”

He added in an interview with DW Arabia, "From the White House's point of view, Egypt plays a positive role in a number of regional files, including Iran and Gaza, and therefore the administration sees no reason to use the human rights clause as a tool to pressure it."

Will the scenario be repeated... Saudi Arabia, for example?

The decision raised fears that the exemption would open the door to similar scenarios with other countries in the region, whenever human rights considerations collide with American interests.

In turn, Hussein Bayoumi, an independent economic and foreign policy analyst for the Middle East in Brussels, believes that the administration of US President Donald Trump has clearly changed the way it deals with the human rights file. He said in an interview with DW Arabic that the Trump administration does not treat the human rights issue as a general priority that applies in the same way to all countries, "but it focuses on issues that are consistent with its political vision of the world, as well as on supporting its far-right allies in a number of countries."

Human Rights Watch's annual report for 2026 noted that "Trump's foreign policy has overturned the foundations of the rules-based system that seeks to promote democracy and human rights, even if this is incomplete." The report added that Trump “bragged that he did not ‘need international law’ as a deterrent, but rather relied solely on his ‘personal morality.’ His administration politicized the US State Department’s annual human rights report.”