Haitham El-Zobaidi: Donald Trump puts a price on Egypt’s safety against Houthis

US President Donald Trump has given his first indication that the US campaign in the Red Sea against Houthi-Iranian piracy will not be without a price tag.

In keeping with his transactional style, the US president has linked his country’s actions in thwarting the Houthi activities and destroying their arsenal of missiles and drones to a demand that the countries concerned pay back the US for its campaign.

This is strikingly similar to what Trump wants to impose on the Ukrainians: contracts for the United States to obtain rare earth concessions in exchange for the cash and weapons that flowed from Washington during the administration of former President Joe Biden, or which the Ukrainians “dream” of obtaining in the near future.

One does not know what other surprises Trump has in store for Saudi Arabia or even for Sudan. Both countries sit on the shores of the Red Sea and face the fallout of Houthi piracy. For now at least, the US president has however chosen the weakest link in the region by requesting that the passage of American commercial and military vessels through the Suez Canal be “free of charge”.

This means that Egypt should not demand any fees from the United States for its ships crossing the Suez Canal. If Egypt acquiesces, even partially, to Trump’s demand, this could take on wider proportions. It might even open the door to demands that a national waterway, built on national soil with national money and labour, be transformed into an international strait, with the waters through the Suez Canal becoming international waters. It is not clear where this will end, because comparing the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal to the Strait of Hormuz, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, or the Strait of Gibraltar will redefine many provisions of international law and high-sea transportation. These are new maps being drawn in the world based on deals and not on what had been agreed upon after centuries of conflicts between states, military history and global exploration.

There has been no official Egyptian response, yet. Perhaps Cairo is still in shock. Egypt has refrained from responding to the Houthis threats for several months believing that international law would deter them. To be precise, Egypt has so far done nothing to deter the Houthis. This was a miscalculation, given that it is being more harmed than anyone else by the Houthis’ actions. This has paved the way for US intervention, and the first billion-dollar bill for the first month of US military operations against the Houthis. That is not likely to be all, as Trump wants to turn the monthly bill into an acquired American right, at least in the foreseeable future. What Trump gains from his deal, which he seeks to impose on the Egyptians, will make other nations seek the same for themselves, hence transforming the Egyptian Suez Canal into an international Suez Strait.

Egypt’s Khedive Muhammad Said Pasha and the French engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps must be turning in their graves. The two were behind the idea of ​​digging the canal in order to save weeks of maritime trade. During Mamluk rule in Egypt, ships coming from the East first reached the Egyptian coast on the Red Sea and unloaded their cargoes of spices and other goods before having them transported across the Egyptian desert via camel caravans to the Mediterranean coast. The journey then continued to Europe, bestowing upon merchants the profits of the well-known trade. When Europeans discovered the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa and acquired sufficient knowledge of sea routes and the annual monsoon seasons, the Red Sea route was cut off, and they circumnavigated the African continent to reach Europe and entered the Mediterranean from the other end, at the Strait of Gibraltar.

“Since returning to power and floating the Gaza Riviera trial balloon and witnessing the Egyptian and Arab uproar, Trump has found the low Arab wall easy to disregard. Egypt’s silence till now is incomprehensible.”

According to some historical records, the Pharaohs gave some consideration to the building of a Suez Canal, early on. Napoleon also pondered a similar idea. But the Muhammad Said Pasha and de Lesseps duo made it possible. They combined money and toiling Egyptian peasants to implement the canal project and achieve an engineering miracle. The price Egypt paid for the construction of the Suez Canal was staggering. Later, there were greater costs in terms of lives, resources and the stability of Egypt in a series of conflicts with major powers and Israel, before Egypt eventually nationalised the canal and reclaimed what it considered to be its undisputed right. To this day, the Suez Canal, even before the Al-Aqsa Flood disaster and the subsequent catastrophes of instability and destruction in Gaza, remains a complex and sensitive issue due to its location in a politically and strategically flammable region.

Egypt is a major regional power. We have written in this newspaper repeatedly about the danger of major powers abandoning their role to others, because these others will quickly take advantage of the situation and unleash a different set of problems. Egypt acted with enviable passivity. It waited until the six-month Houthi “siege” of the southern Red Sea was complete and issued statistics on its losses due to the Houthis’ actions. It acted in a procedural manner that is difficult to fathom.

If Egypt had, for instance, followed the example of its arch-rival Israel, when it considered Abdel Nasser’s closure of the Straits of Tiran a hostile act justifying war, the strategic situation of today would have been completely different. Egypt would have just thanked Trump for participating in deterrence of the Houthis, who threaten world peace. But Trump came to power and discovered that the Houthis had reached an advanced stage of maritime bullying. What could prevent a deal-maker who is pressing Panama to allow US ships to cross its canal without paying any fees from doing the same with Egypt? I once wrote that there was need for deterrent measures to thwart plans by the Houthis and Iran to secure their control of the southern Arabian Peninsula as well as access to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. I wrote that whoever does not act to restore the balance there, will have to live with the prospect of the Houthis or Iran, or maybe both, coming for him. And here are the Houthis now coming to Egypt with their missiles and drones, under the pretext of defending Gaza and attacking Israel. But what is more shocking and bitter is that the United States, which is facing off with the Houthis today, is demanding an open-ended reward from Egypt.

A low wall is tempting for others to climb. Since returning to power and floating the Gaza Riviera trial balloon and witnessing the Egyptian and Arab uproar, Trump has found the low Arab wall easy to disregard. Egypt’s silence till now is incomprehensible. Perhaps, Egyptian leaders have probably tasked some of their Arab friends with mediation of the issue before it becomes another “Riviera”. I wish them success.

But what complicates matters and renders them difficult to understand is the lack of Egyptian plans to confront the Houthis militarily. The country boasts an army that supporters claim is formidable, well-trained and equipped with the best modern weapons.  Also intriguing is Cairo’s unwillingness to challenge Trump diplomatically, using Egypt’s close ties to the United States and its connections to Arab allies, led by the UAE and Western allies, headed  by France.

The Egyptians still have many cards they could play before the matter turns into something akin to Trump’s demand from Panama as he pressures and blackmails it. As we have seen, there is nothing to prevent Trump from going beyond all limits in dealing with the Egyptians in the same way he has dealt with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, disregarding all considerations and ignoring European mediation and pressures. This is Trump’s world, where he believes he can do whatever he wants whenever he wants, even when the fates of nations, and even their histories, are at stake.

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Trump wants money, deals, gratitude and triumphs. The sky is the limit for the advantages he seeks for himself and his country.

At the very least, we are forced to coexist with a dangerous leader of a country of unlimited powers and no deterrents. Slow action or inaction are no options at all.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Maghrebi.org. Haitham El Zobaidi is the Executive Editor of Al Arab Publishing House. He is also chairman and publisher of The Arab Weekly and Al-Jadeed magazine.

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