Nile dam negotiations back on track after Trump remarks

CAIRO — Three days after US President Donald Trump's statements about Egypt's right to resort to military action to defend its interests in the Nile waters against the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, the technical and legal teams headed by the foreign and water ministers of Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia resumed negotiations Oct. 26 on the dam under the auspices of the African Union. The talks come after a two-month hiatus on talks to reach a comprehensive and binding agreement on the filling and operation of the dam.

In an Oct. 23 phone call from the Oval Office with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of Sudan's ruling sovereign council, and Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok announced in front of reporters the normalization of relations between Sudan and Israel, Trump discussed the dispute over the dam as a priority of his foreign agenda in dealing with Sudan. He addressed Hamdok, demanding he do something about the Ethiopians.

“I had a deal done for them, and then unfortunately, Ethiopia broke the deal, which they should not have done. That was a big mistake,” Trump said. He mentioned that the United States had suspended aid to Ethiopia over its rejection of the deal, adding, “They will never see that money unless they adhere to the agreement.”

Trump not only attacked Ethiopia for breaking the agreement brokered by Washington and the World Bank in February following negotiations that lasted four months, but warned of the possibility that Egypt could resort to a military solution. “They’ll [Egyptians] end up blowing up the dam. And I said it — and I say it loud and clear, ‘They’ll blow up that dam.’ And they have to do something,” he told Burhan over the phone. “They should have stopped it [the dam] long before it was started.”