Egypt is the most populous Arab country, ruled by Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, a dictator who seized power in a coup in 2013. It was the first Arab country to recognise Israel. Donald Trump gave al-Sisi a warm welcome at the White House in April 2017. Egyptians refer to their country as umm al-dunya, the mother of the world. Egypt has 400,000 nationals in the UAE, which resents Egypt's calls for de-escalation during the Iran war rather than military support; when al-Sisi visited Muhammad bin Zayed in Abu Dhabi on May 7th 2026 he was taken for tea in a mall rather than receiving a palace photo-op. Egypt is also alarmed by the UAE's support for the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan, Emirati-backed separatists in Libya and Somaliland, and the UAE's support for a separate administration in Gaza.
Al-Sisi has wrecked the Egyptian economy, running up unsustainable public debts (around 90% of GDP) to pay for vanity projects and refusing the common-sense reforms that might boost a stagnant private sector. Egypt is the IMF's third-biggest debtor. It has received at least $45bn in aid from Gulf states since 2013, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Egypt depends on the Nile for most of its water supply. Much of its water goes to agriculture, and its irrigation systems are old and leaky. Once the dominant mode of transport in Egypt, the Nile now carries less than 1% of the country's internal trade. Since 2014 Egypt has built more than 6,300km of roads while leaving its river ports to rot; at least one major dam has no lock to let ships pass. The opening of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile in September 2025 heightened fears that Ethiopia could choke off Egypt's supply, though experts disagree on how serious the threat is. Al-Sisi has described the dam as "a matter of life and death". Egypt has at times used the dam dispute to stoke nationalist fervour, portraying Ethiopia as a threat to its sovereignty. After the last round of negotiations broke down in 2023, Egypt stepped up efforts to support Ethiopia's foes, reportedly sending weapons to the Fano, an Ethiopian rebel movement, and strengthening ties with Eritrea.
Egypt is a strong supporter of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in Sudan's civil war and has reportedly provided air support. The United Arab Emirates bailed out Egypt's cash-strapped government with $35bn in 2024, which may limit Cairo's willingness to confront the UAE over its backing of Sudan's Rapid Support Forces (RSF), even as the RSF advanced towards the Egyptian border in June 2025.
Al-Sisi has championed the construction of a new administrative capital outside Cairo. The centrepiece is the Iconic Tower, completed in 2024, which rises nearly 400 metres above the desert—the tallest building in Africa until Ivory Coast's Tour F surpasses it. The new capital project may set Egypt back $58bn. The government, which already spends nearly two-thirds of its budget servicing its public debt, is borrowing most of the money from China.
In 2013 the army overthrew Muhammad Morsi, the popularly elected president, in a coup. His supporters staged a two-month sit-in at Rabaa al-Adawiya square in eastern Cairo. Hundreds of them were killed by soldiers and police in August of that year, the bloodiest day in Egypt's modern history. The name Rabaa al-Adawiya became a metonym for massacre, so the government tried to stop people from speaking it. In 2015 it renamed the square after a prosecutor assassinated in a car bombing.
Egypt is the only Arab country to border Gaza. Since the start of the war, Israel has insisted on screening any aid entering Gaza from Egypt; the Israeli army seized the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing in May 2024. Egypt has taken in more than 100,000 Gazans, many of whom paid enormous fees to cross the border, and has facilitated the delivery of 550,000 tonnes of aid. It fears that a chaotic border would let many more enter—Hamas militants among them—and worries about being saddled with a long-term refugee crisis on top of the roughly 1m displaced people it already hosts from other conflicts.
Egypt's public debt of 87% of GDP limits its ability to match Gulf donors' largesse. The United Arab Emirates sent $678m-worth of aid to Gaza in 2024, the largest single contribution, accounting for 19% of aid tracked by the UN. Egypt has served more as a facilitator than a donor.
In ceasefire negotiations, Egypt has at times tried to wrest control from Qatar, the tiny Gulf sheikhdom that has long harboured Hamas leaders. When Hamas agreed in August 2025 to a 60-day truce—after months of insisting on a permanent one—it did so in Cairo. In March 2025 Egypt convinced Arab leaders to endorse its plan for rebuilding Gaza, including clearing 53m tonnes of rubble in two years—the first serious attempt to plan for Gaza's post-war future, though parts of the scheme are widely regarded as unrealistic.
Egypt spends about 3% of GDP on oil and gas imports and gets nearly half its supplies from the Middle East. Like Pakistan, it depends heavily on remittances from the Gulf, worth around 5-6% of GDP. Around $29bn in external debt falls due in 2026—more than half of its foreign-exchange reserves—limiting its ability to absorb energy shocks.
Egypt's influence in the Middle East has waned. When Trump returned to Riyadh in May 2025, Gulf rulers did not bother to summon al-Sisi. He flew instead to Baghdad for a desultory Arab League summit, where he was one of only five heads of state to attend out of the 22-member club. Egypt now faces competition for Gulf aid: Lebanon needs at least $7bn to rebuild after its war with Israel, and Syria will need many times more. Both countries' governments are promising serious economic and political reform, making them more attractive investments than Egypt, where aid merely buys time until the next financial crisis.
You can make it illegal, but you can't make it unpopular.