Trump, Egypt, the GERD, and the Glaspie Shadow

No sooner had US President Donald Trump proposed American mediation on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in an important letter addressed to his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on January 16 than Cairo and Khartoum welcomed the initiative, amid Ethiopian unease over Trump’s intentions in a file that remains highly sensitive for all parties.

Yet a close reading of Egyptian reactions issued by officials and experts involved in the file, and an observation of the cautious tone that dominated most of these statements, alongside a noticeable lack of optimism, reveals an understandable fear of any Egyptian military entanglement in addressing the issue.

This concern recalls what Iraq experienced in 1990, following the well-known meeting between Saddam Hussein and the US ambassador to Baghdad, April Glaspie, who conveyed Washington’s position on Saddam’s troop buildup on the Kuwaiti border. She was later quoted as telling Saddam that “the United States has no opinion on Arab–Arab conflicts, such as your border dispute with Kuwait.” According to numerous accounts, Saddam interpreted this statement as an American green light for military action against Kuwait in August 1990, without anticipating a decisive US response. That expectation proved mistaken, and Iraq subsequently endured decades of sanctions and war that devastated the country. This apprehension is further reinforced by the historically strong American–Ethiopian relationship, even during periods of severe divergence in interests.

During his first presidential term, Trump had already overseen a significant diplomatic push on the GERD file. The US Treasury Department led trilateral negotiations among Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan aimed at reaching a legally binding agreement on the filling, management, and operation of the dam by the end of February 2020. These talks involved Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin, alongside the foreign ministers and ministers of water resources of Egypt and Sudan, through a series of separate meetings.

At the time, the Treasury announced that an important agreement had been reached after four months of intensive negotiations, based on seven years of technical studies and consultations among the three countries. It asserted that the agreement provides solutions to all outstanding issues related to the filling and operation of the dam, and that the “new” arrangement was built upon the 2015 Declaration of Principles, particularly those concerning equitable and reasonable use, the obligation not to cause harm, and cooperation. Ethiopia, however, rejected the agreement and repeatedly accused Washington of siding with Egypt and Sudan in the GERD dispute. These accusations have persisted following Trump’s return to the presidency at the beginning of 2025.

In a relatively unexpected move, particularly amid rising tensions in the Horn of Africa and its growing exposure to regional confrontations, Trump revisited the GERD file in mid-January through a letter addressed to President Sisi. He opened the letter by praising Sisi’s role in mediating a ceasefire in Gaza, before declaring his readiness to relaunch American mediation between Ethiopia and Egypt in order to reach a “responsible” settlement of the issue of sharing Nile waters, “once and for all.”

Trump stated that Washington seeks an outcome that secures the water needs of Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia, through a strong American role in monitoring the parties and coordinating among them, supported by sound technical expertise and fair, transparent negotiations aimed at achieving a lasting solution. Ethiopian observers viewed this as fully aligned with Egypt’s core demand for a US guarantor and a binding, permanent agreement.

President Trump also called for predictable water releases during periods and years of drought affecting Egypt and Sudan, stressed that no single state should dominate the Nile to the detriment of its neighbors, an implicit reference to Ethiopia, and suggested that Ethiopia could sell electricity generated from the dam to Sudan and Egypt. He concluded by noting that the issue ranks high on his agenda as he works toward lasting peace in the Middle East and Africa, expressing hope that the dispute over the dam, which he strikingly referred to as “DAM!”, would not escalate into a major military conflict.

What matters here is Trump’s capacity to exert sustained pressure on multiple parties, create preconditions that magnify the value of his role, and establish a situation in which he becomes indispensable, lest all parties incur significant losses, according to highly precise Trumpian calculations.

Trump’s renewed engagement closely reflects key traits of his personality, particularly his tendency to convert obstacles into opportunities, what he described in his 2008 book Trump Never Give Up as “the art of the comeback.” A closer examination of Trump’s self-described mindset sheds light on his approach to international issues. In the final chapter of the book, titled “Where Others Have Failed, There’s Your Opportunity” Trump recounts one of his most notable pre-presidential successes: acquiring what later became known as Trump Building at 40 Wall Street, a 283-meter skyscraper in New York’s financial district.

He describes how he had monitored the building for decades, driven by a desire to own it, before ultimately securing it through an initial investment of just one million dollars, which he presents as a rebuttal to the myth of overnight success. The building had been owned in the 1980s by former Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, before passing through the hands of major banking groups that later developed relationships with Trump during the US real estate crisis. Eventually, following the intertwining of economic and political interests with the Walter Henniberg family in Germany, the property became Trump’s. His one-million-dollar investment generated annual rental revenues of $20 million prior to 2008, while the building’s value rose to more than $500 million with improved market conditions.

What matters here is Trump’s capacity to exert sustained pressure on multiple parties, create preconditions that magnify the value of his role, and establish a situation in which he becomes indispensable, lest all parties incur significant losses, according to highly precise Trumpian calculations.

Trump’s approach to the GERD and Egypt’s water rights, as outlined in the current letter, fits squarely within this framework. This is particularly so as the United States is currently engaged in dismantling and restructuring security arrangements in the Horn of Africa through successive actions that affect allies before adversaries, while leaving room for the maneuvering of competing regional powers, all of which maintain close ties with Washington ranging from strategic partnerships to balanced functional cooperation.

What is new in Trump’s approach is the opening of a potential pathway toward resolving the GERD crisis, as well as the timing of the letter’s release just hours before the completion of the first year of his administration. By contrast, the earlier Treasury-led effort occurred during the final year of Trump’s first term, suggesting the possibility that he may now pursue the file within a more favorable temporal framework across the remaining three years of his presidency.

On the other hand, President Sisi responded very positively to Trump’s initiative, expressing appreciation for his efforts to support peace and stability at both the regional and international levels, as well as for the attention he devotes to the Nile River issue, which is of central importance to Egypt. Sisi reaffirmed Egypt’s commitment to serious and constructive cooperation with Nile Basin countries on the basis of international law, in a manner that achieves shared interests without causing harm to any party. He also revealed that he had sent a letter to Trump in which he expressed Egypt’s support for Trump’s efforts and reaffirmed its position and “related concerns regarding Egyptian water security.”

Nevertheless, the official Egyptian welcome of Trump’s proposal, articulated by President Sisi and echoed by diplomats and media figures, did not fully dispel the concerns of some Egyptian observers, including individuals close to decision-making circles. These concerns stem from references in Trump’s letter to the possibility of military conflict, as well as from the connotations of the term “DAM!”, which recall earlier remarks by Trump suggesting that Egyptians might blow up the dam. There is apprehension that such signals could serve as an attempt to draw Egypt into a military confrontation with Ethiopia.

In light of Ethiopia’s highly cautious response to Trump’s initiative, and its implicit accusation of bias in favor of Egypt’s long-standing demands since construction of the dam began, as well as Ethiopian media reports on January 20 citing Egyptian Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Hani Sewilam as stating that Egypt intends to demand Ethiopian compensation for a reduction of approximately 38 billion cubic meters from its historical annual share of 55 billion cubic meters of Nile waters, Egypt has nonetheless taken a step forward in exerting pressure on the Ethiopian side. This also represents a retreat from the assumption that a binding agreement on the operation and management of the dam would be exchanged for Egypt’s, and perhaps Saudi Arabia’s, approval of Ethiopia obtaining sovereign access to the Red Sea.

Accordingly, uncertainty regarding the seriousness of Trump’s current approach remains the most realistic position adopted by many Egyptian observers. Some have even voiced fears of a form of deception reminiscent of the Glaspie episode, which remains deeply ingrained in the collective memory of Arab and Egyptian political elites.

Yet this sense of reassurance in Cairo, despite the close relationship between Trump and Sisi and Trump’s appreciation for Sisi’s governing style, mirrors sentiments that existed during Trump’s first administration. This sentiment was quickly undermined by Ethiopia’s firm rejection of the Treasury-brokered agreement, the Trump administration’s reluctance to apply additional pressure on Abiy Ahmed’s government, and Ethiopia’s successful wager on Joe Biden’s election and the subsequent review of Trump-era GERD policies in what the Ethiopian narrative described as Egypt’s favor.

Accordingly, uncertainty regarding the seriousness of Trump’s current approach remains the most realistic position adopted by many Egyptian observers. Some have even voiced fears of a form of deception reminiscent of the Glaspie episode, which remains deeply ingrained in the collective memory of Arab and Egyptian political elites. Such a scenario could undermine Egypt’s recent gains in its African policies in general, and in the Horn of Africa in particular, should Egypt engage in any form of military confrontation to protect its water security and, ultimately, its existential interests.

In his book Donald Trump and American Populism: New Insights into the American Presidency (2020), Richard S. Conley traces the roots of Trump’s populist approach and its evolution since 2016, as well as the emergence of populism as a governing style. Conley observes that Trump, as president, shows little inclination to draw on academic expertise. From the outset, he does not tend to engage with issues within a reasonable time frame, undertake the painstaking work of developing solutions in coordination with advisers, or consult national security experts to formulate coherent strategies for foreign policy issues. Instead, Trump favors immediate executive action to achieve objectives as quickly as possible, bypassing Congress and relying on the “art of the deal.”

From this perspective, resolving the GERD crisis may be possible in a Trumpian manner, one that relies on imposing specific options on the parties to the dispute, particularly Ethiopia, and maximizing Washington’s gains from the contradictions among its partners’ positions. These include Egypt’s firm stance against Ethiopia gaining sovereign access to the Red Sea, Ethiopia’s support for current Israeli and Emirati orientations in Somalia/Somaliland that align with Addis Ababa’s regional strategies, and Sudan’s accusations that Ethiopia has intervened in its internal crisis in support of the Rapid Support Forces.

Such an approach would allow Washington to secure maximum gains, not only by imposing its vision of regional order and reshaping relations among states beyond the traditional nation-state model toward market-based arrangements, while marginalizing other international powers, but also by ensuring the continued fragility of relations among the region’s states outside the American umbrella.