Al Shindagah

6 | Al Shindagah | Issue 137 POLITICS ©Shutterstock Washington’s slap to Egypt is unfair and unwise gyptians saw a potential friend in the 2016 US presidential candidate Donald Trump. His win delivered hope that the frosty relationship between Cairo and Washington, triggered by the Obama administration’s support of the ousted Muslim Brotherhood regime, was poised to thaw. Barack Obama withheld aid to Egypt as a punitive measure even as the new leadership had inherited a country on the brink of Muslim Brotherhood-engendered chaos and bankruptcy. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait stretched out a generous helping hand to keep the most populous Arab nation afloat. Today, no thanks to President Obama, the country’s economy – stock market, foreign reserves, exports, tourism and the energy sector – is back on positive ground. President Trump invited his Egyptian counterpart President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi to the White House to “reboot relations”. He described the Egyptian President as “a fantastic guy” while assuring him that he has “a great friend and ally in the US and me”. Moreover, he indicated that he would label the Brotherhood ‘terrorist’, only to backtrack. If I were in President el-Sisi’s shoes, I might be thinking ‘with friends like these who need enemies’. Trump’s ‘kiss’ reminds me of the Godfather’s – the kiss of death. His buddy-buddy stance towards President Vladimir Putin has seen Russia sanctioned and he is now threatening a trade war with China whose President Xi Jinping he described as “a very special person”. On the very day that Trump’s adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner E Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor • Published in the media on 28 August 2017