Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said on Saturday that the bilateral relations between Egypt and the United States are strategic. He also added that there is deep cooperation between the two countries in terms of regional and international issues.
This came in response to a question by the Middle East News Agency (MENA), asking about the bilateral relations between Egypt and the US under the new administration of US president Donald Trump, and the concerns on Trump’s statements in which he promised to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
Shoukry added that Egypt had been communicating with the current US administration before its official inauguration, when Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi met with Trump in September 2016 on the sidelines of the United Nations general assembly that was held in New York. Shoukry also met with US vice president Mike Pence in December, saying that this asserts that the relations between Egypt and the US under the new administration will thrive.
The foreign minister concluded by saying that we should wait on the new administration until it announces its policies and the officials start working—that is when Egypt will start its bilateral talks with the US to tackle different regional and international issues.
Trump officially took office as president on 20 January; Al-Sisi congratulated him while he was still giving his inauguration speech. Al-Sisi was also the first president to congratulate Trump on 9 November 2016 when the latter won the US presidential elections.
The bilateral relations between Egypt and the US are expected to improve under the administration of Trump. During the administration of former US president Barack Obama, the relations deteriorated as he believed the ouster of former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi by the armed forces in 2013 was a military coup. Obama, as a result, cut US aid to Egypt, but had to restore it in 2015 due to the rise of Islamic State (IS) threats.
