If Trump Wants to Spotlight Corruption, He Should Try Egypt

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- To invoke a cliche much misused in the Middle East, President Donald Trump never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Having spent last weekend defending his right to ask foreign leaders about corruption — especially if their countries receive substantial American military aid — the president could have underlined his point at his meeting on Monday with General Abdel- Fattah El-Sisi.

After all, Egypt is a major recipient of U.S. military assistance, and is witnessing a wave of anti-corruption protests. Trump would have been well within his rights to ask the general for an explanation — and since no Bidens are involved, this would not have been improper, much less impeachable. 

But Trump, who has previously proclaimed El-Sisi as “my favorite dictator,” was at pains to spare Egypt’s ruler the awkwardness that will attend his upcoming meeting with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Instead, he declared that El-Sisi was “a great leader” and “highly respected.” For good measure, he shrugged off the protests: “Demonstrations? No, everybody has demonstrations.”

To Trump’s mind, there’s possibly no difference between the protests in various Egyptian cities and, say, last weekend’s demonstrations for action against climate change across the world. Or perhaps he just doesn’t like any form of public dissidence: after all, Trump has described the pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong as “riots.”

But the Egyptian protesters are braving much more than water cannons and police batons. In El-Sisi’s Egypt, dissent can carry deadlier consequences. Human-rights groups have documented tens of thousands of abuses by authorities, ranging from intimidation and beatings to torture in the country’s notorious prison system and extrajudicial killings.

Remember, too, that Egypt’s governments have a long tradition of corruption. Its rulers have historically counted on a high degree of tolerance for official venality and graft among the ruled.

So, when Egyptians are prepared to risk life and limb to protest corruption, you know that the highest bars have been vaulted. The situation is too grave to be dismissed as “everybody has demonstrations.”  

At their meeting in New York, Trump also left unchallenged El-Sisi’s assertion that the protests were the work of Islamists. This is a familiar bromide, doled out for decades by secular dictators in Muslim lands, and especially in Egypt, where rulers from Gamal Abdel Nasser onward have blamed the Muslim Brotherhood for any public disturbance. Since taking power in 2013, El-Sisi has directed enormous energy and resources to snuffing out the any Islamist opposition. Ironically, he enjoys the backing of hardline Salafists.

There is little evidence that the protesters have any religious motivation. They seem to have been inspired mostly by anti-corruption videos published online by a former actor and sometime government contractor called Mohamed Ali.

A more charitable explanation for Trump’s cavalier dismissal of the Egyptian protests is that he views El-Sisi’s rule as vital to U.S. interests, and is inclined to give the general a pass on questions of democracy, corruption and human rights. That was, after all, the attitude of Trump’s predecessor in the early days of the 2011 Arab Spring uprising. Only belatedly did President Barack Obama come around to support the protests against Hosni Mubarak.

Even if the latest protests don’t immediately expand into the mass rallies of 2011, Trump should take heed that large numbers of Egyptians are willing to defy brutal repression. As they did before, they may again take heart from popular uprisings that have toppled tyrannies — in Algeria and Sudan now, as much as Tunisia then — and return to the streets, more determined than ever.   

If El-Sisi’s survival is important to Trump, he needs to counsel his favorite dictator to clean up his government. As an additional inducement, he might even consider wielding the threat of holding back American military assistance. He may have missed that opportunity in New York. But happily, Trump is comfortable talking about corruption on the phone.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Gibney at jgibney5@bloomberg.net

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Bobby Ghosh is a columnist and member of the Bloomberg Opinion editorial board. He writes on foreign affairs, with a special focus on the Middle East and the wider Islamic world.

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