Egypt is a “terrible ally” to the US, Andrew Miller and Richard Sokolsky write in a guest editorial for The New York Times, calling for a cut in the military aid package. “American and Egyptian interests are increasingly divergent and the relationship now has far less common purpose than it once did.” Miller and Sokolsky say that Egypt has showed “profoundly unfriendly behavior” when it signed an airbase usage agreement with Russia and for its support of General Khalifa Haftar in Libya. They add: “For too long, the United States has allowed the Egyptian government to treat security assistance as an entitlement owed for making peace with Israel. The United States has not held Egypt accountable for how this money is spent” and that this give Egypt “a free ride on American generosity.”

…Egypt and Russia are deepening their economic ties and are being driven closer because of geopolitical considerations, He Wenping and Hisham Metwally write for Global Times. They point to the agreement between President Abdel Fattah El Sisi and Russian President Vladimir Putin over Jerusalem, the signing of the nuclear power plant agreement, and the potential return of Russian tourists to Egypt.