(FP) – The Trump administration is weighing withholding some aid to Ethiopia over a Nile dam project that has severely strained its relationship with downstream countries Sudan and Egypt, six officials and congressional aides familiar with the matter told Foreign Policy.<\/p>\n
The massive dam, Africa\u2019s biggest, has become a flashpoint of geopolitical tensions between Egypt and Ethiopia, with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi hinting that his country could use military force to halt the project. Many in Egypt fear the dam could threaten its water supplies. <\/p>\n
But some U.S. officials said the project has also fueled divisions and confusion over policy within the U.S. government, ever since Sisi asked President Donald Trump to help mediate negotiations over the dam last year. <\/p>\n
U.S. participation in four-way talks over the dam earlier this year, led by the Treasury Department, helped advance talks. However, Ethiopia refused to sign a final agreement. Now there\u2019s growing concern that the Trump administration is putting its thumb on the scales to favor Egypt at the expense of Ethiopia\u2014even as new signs of progress emerge in negotiations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Trump administration has gotten it into its head that it has to take Egypt\u2019s side on this,\u201d said one U.S. official familiar with the matter. \u201cNobody in the White House seems to be looking at this through the Africa lens and its impact on Ethiopia, which is equally important,\u201d the official added. \u201cThis is just shooting ourselves in the foot.\u201d […] CONTINUE READING<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (FP) – The Trump administration is weighing withholding some aid to Ethiopia over a Nile dam project that has severely strained its relationship with downstream countries Sudan and Egypt, six officials and congressional aides familiar with the matter told Foreign Policy. The massive dam, Africa\u2019s biggest, has become a flashpoint of geopolitical tensions between Egypt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":324711,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-324710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Nile-Dam-project.jpg?fit=908%2C607&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-1mtg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324710"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":324712,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324710\/revisions\/324712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}