U.S. Aid to Egypt: Where Does the Money Go And Who Decides How It's Spent?

TPM Livewire ^ | february 1, 2011 | Marian Wang

[khnyny]

The protests in Egypt have prompted renewed questions about the U.S.'s aid to the country -- an issue that the U.S. government has also pledged to reconsider. We've taken a step back and tried to answer some basic questions, such as how as much the U.S. has given, who has benefited, and who gets to decide how its all spent.

How much does the U.S. spend on Egypt?

Egypt gets the most U.S. foreign aid of any country except for Israel. (This doesn't include the money spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.) The amount varies each year and there are many different funding streams, but U.S. foreign assistance to Egypt has averaged just over $2 billion every year since 1979, when Egypt struck a peace treaty with Israel following the Camp David Peace Accords, according to a Congressional Research Service report from 2009.

That average includes both military and economic assistance, though the latter has been in decline since 1998, according to CRS.

What about military aid -- how much is it, and what does it buy?

According to the State Department, U.S. military aid to Egypt totals over $1.3 billion annually in a stream of funding known as Foreign Military Financing.

U.S. officials have long argued that the funding promotes strong ties between the two countries' militaries, which in turn has all sorts of benefits. For example, U.S. Navy warships get "expedited processing" through the Suez Canal.

Here's a 2009 U.S. embassy cable recently released by WikiLeaks that makes essentially the same point

President Mubarak and military leaders view our military assistance program as the cornerstone of our mil-mil relationship and consider the USD 1.3 billion in annual FMF as "untouchable compensation" for making and maintaining peace with Israel...

[GreyHoundSailor]

I worked with them all at an ODC. Eye-opening, to say the least. Have stories that nobody would believe.

[Jim Noble]

1) Where does the money go? - Switzerland.

2) Who decides how it’s spent? - Mubarak.

HTH.

[Hulka]

Indeed.

I hear ya.