Cuddling With Cairo

Why the bromance between Donald Trump and Egypt’s Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi might not last

- Peter Schwartzstein

The life-size cutout of Hillary Clinton looked lonely. On November 8, at the U.S. Embassy’s presidential election night bash in Cairo, dozens of young Egyptians gathered in a cavernous hotel ballroom to pose with a cardboard effigy of Clinton’s opponent, Donald Trump. Despite the New York mogul’s call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States, Trump is popular here, at least among government supporters. So when the Apprentice star swept the American heartland for a shocking victory, many in the Egyptian capital cheered the result.

Among them: President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, the first foreign leader to congratulate Trump. His budding bromance with the Donald stands in contrast to his relationship with outgoing President Barack Obama, whom he’s viewed with distrust since Washington briefly suspended military aid following the 2013 coup that brought el-Sissi to power. Egyptian authorities have since moved closer to Russia, holding large joint military drills and perhaps securing funds from Vladimir Putin for the country’s first nuclear power plant.

Many expect el-Sissi and Trump to bond over their mutual antipathy toward “radical Islam”—and a shared preference for strongman politics. But Egyptian-American affairs have long been characterized by wild swings, from extended periods of cooperation to swift ruptures. And with Trump’s inexperience and el-Sissi’s intolerance of unsolicited advice or criticism, few expect the relationship between Washington and Cairo to remain copacetic.