The Biden administration will withhold some but not all of Egypt’s annual military aid that Congress had conditioned on the country making human rights improvements, disappointing many Democratic lawmakers and rights groups who said the decision undermines President Joe Biden’s past promises on holding the partner to account. 

At $1.3 billion, Egypt trails Israel as the second-largest recipient of US military assistance each year. In its annual appropriations legislation, Congress made the release of $300 million for the coming year contingent on Egypt meeting certain human rights benchmarks. 

For the second year in a row, the Biden administration decided to withhold $130 million of the conditioned $300 million. The withheld aid — which represents 10% of Egypt’s total assistance package — will be immediately reprogrammed, unlike last year when Washington gave Cairo several months to comply with a set of rights conditions and then cut the aid when it failed to do so. 

A separate tranche of $95 million in conditioned military assistance will be released to Egypt for use in counterterrorism, border security and nonproliferation programs.