President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi recjected U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent demands for free passage of American vessels through the Suez Canal and Egyptian support in military strikes against Yemen’s Houthi rebels, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday, citing unnamed sources.
Trump had raised the Suez Canal issue in a phone call with El-Sisi earlier this month, the report said, before taking to his social media platform Truth Social last Sunday to demand free transit for U.S. military and commercial ships through the Suez and Panama canals.
“Those Canals would not exist without the United States of America,” Trump wrote. “ I've asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio to immediately take care of, and memorialize, this situation!”
Egypt has not issued an official response to the post or the reported request.
According to WSJ, Trump offered intelligence-sharing, military assistance or financial aid to Egypt in exchange for cooperation against the Houthis. The U.S. has led near-daily airstrikes on Yemen since mid-March, claiming to target Houthi forces after the group resumed attacks on Israeli ships in the Red Sea in retaliation for the occupation blocking aid from Gaza.
However, El-Sisi declined, reportedly telling Trump that a ceasefire in Gaza would be a more effective path to ending Houthi attacks, according to the same sources.
Since January 2024, the United States has been working with Britain to counter Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea, which began on November 19, 2023, in response to Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip.
U.S. National Security Council spokesperson James Hewitt defended Trump’s position in comments to the Journal, saying the campaign to secure Red Sea navigation “benefits American workers and consumers, and partners around the globe, including Egypt.”
“The burden of a wide-reaching military operation must be shared,” Hewitt said. “Free passage for American ships through the Suez Canal is one way to share it.”
WSJ described Trump’s actions as an effort to make Egypt “pay back” the U.S. for its role in defending shipping lanes critical to the Suez route, putting the economically strained country in a politically sensitive position.
Roughly 10 percent of global trade flows through the canal, a key source of foreign currency for Egypt, which brought in an estimated $9.4 billion in 2023, according to the BBC. But that traffic has dropped significantly since the Houthis began targeting "Israel-linked" Red Sea ships in November 2023.
Trump’s push comes as Washington increases pressure on Egypt to accept displaced Palestinians from Gaza. Since late January, the U.S. President has repeatedly called for the resettlement of Gazans and rebuilding of the strip. Cairo has rejected the proposal, with El-Sisi calling the idea “an injustice we will not be part of.”
Michael Wahid Hanna, director of the U.S. program at International Crisis Group and an expert on Egyptian politics and security, told WSJ that Trump is "making sweeping pronouncements on critical issues for Egypt without a functioning policy process or consultations with the Egyptian government."
“And Egypt is then left to decipher what it all means, map out a plan to defend their interest, and do so in a way that doesn’t anger Trump,” Hanna said.
The Federal Maritime Commission recently opened an inquiry into "global maritime chokepoints," including the Suez Canal, to assess potential "unfavorable conditions" for U.S. trade.
The United States was not involved in building the Suez Canal, and declined to invest in it when offered shares in the 19th century. However, it did pressure Britain, France and Israel to end their 1956 invasion of Egypt.
