Issue 315

Trump and the Nile

Finally completed last year, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) may have started generating electricity, but it has opened the geopolitical floodgates as well. The mammoth achievement on the Blue Nile in Ethiopia's western Benishangul-Gumuz region is a towering feat of engineering, the largest hydroelectric dam on the African continent-- and a source of immense frustration for the Egyptian government. Thwarted in its attempts to stall its construction, Cairo has repeatedly sought to diplomatically encircle Ethiopia amid a concerning deterioration of bilateral relations. And, now, US President Donald Trump has again waded into the fray at the start of 2026.

Earlier this month, evidently at the behest of Cairo, Trump publicly wrote to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, stating that the US is "ready to restart US mediation... to responsibly resolve the question of 'The Nile Water Sharing' once and for all." As ever, the letter is dotted with Trump's love of capital letters and ham-fisted commentary. It also trots out an unmistakably pro-Egyptian line, affirming that no single country—a thinly veiled reference to Ethiopia—should unilaterally control Nile waters, and that a deal on regularised releases must be found. Trump also dangled the prospect of Ethiopia monetising the GERD through regional electricity sales, arguing that predictable downstream releases need not preclude Addis from profiting as a power exporter. Trump also warned that the dispute could escalate into a "major military conflict."

This is not the first time that Trump has intervened on Egypt's behalf. During a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte last year, Trump —as is his wont —remarked that "I think if I am Egypt, I want to have water in the Nile, and we are working on that." El-Sisi went into raptures, proclaiming that Egypt "values" that Trump is seeking a "fair agreement... and his assertion of what the Nile represents to Egypt as a source of life." Hardly surprising; Washington—despite strains with Cairo over Gaza—has long lent far greater strategic weight to Egypt than to Ethiopia, a hierarchy underscored by Trump's 2019 description of el-Sisi as his "favourite dictator."

But such comments —and the flagrant prioritisation of Egypt —make it far less likely that Addis will engage in any meaningful way, particularly given its position of strength with the dam already completed. Addis has also shown few qualms about sidelining prior commitments on the GERD, including withdrawing from the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment process in 2012 and effectively hollowing out the 2015 Declaration of Principles. Further, despite Egyptian protests, Ethiopia gradually filled the dam between 2020 and 2024 with 60bn cubic metres of water through five stages, which Addis has argued had no discernible impact on downstream flow. Whether that is maintained during extreme drought remains to be seen, however, and with most of Egypt's population living just a few miles from the Nile, it remains an absolute red line for Cairo.

The most recent series of fitful negotiations between Cairo, Khartoum, and Addis was also facilitated towards the back end of the first Trump administration, coming shortly after the US president revealed that Egypt had considered bombing the GERD. Yet Cairo may also think twice about doing so today, with the filling now complete and destructive consequences inevitable for Sudan's Blue Nile State if the dam were to be split apart. A more limited, precision strike—such as on a turbine—has long been discussed in Egyptian strategic circles, though it would still carry serious escalation risks. Eventually, the unproductive 2020 to 2024 US and World Bank-led negotiations were ended after Egypt withdrew in a show of apparent solidarity with Mogadishu over the Ethiopia-Somaliland Memorandum of Understanding. Since then, Cairo has prioritised aligning itself ever more closely with both Asmara and Mogadishu, formulating the 'Tripartite Alliance' against Ethiopia. 

Less discussed, though, is that Sudan is the most operationally exposed of the three GERD states, with its own dam safety and irrigation systems dependent on real-time data-sharing from upstream—something Addis has resisted institutionalising. Sudan's military government has firmly backed its Egyptian patrons on the GERD during the war, though Khartoum previously maintained a more nuanced stance on the dam's operation. With reports of Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fighters being trained in an Emirati-built base in Benishangul-Gumuz and facilitated by Ethiopia, it is highly improbable now that Sudan would budge from its anti-GERD position at this juncture in any renewed talks.

Meanwhile, Trump's interjection in the simmering dispute marks his second in the region in recent months, having pledged to "start working on Sudan" at the request of Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman. But while it helped to elevate the priority of the raging internationalised conflict to the White House, little progress has been made in cajoling the belligerents into a ceasefire or diminishing the role of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or the UAE in the war. Indeed, regarding the American intervention as a direct result of the Saudi request, the Emirates has not budged on its positioning-- with some citing bin Salman's visit to Washington as the precursor to the Southern Transitional Council's (STC) offensive in Yemen. But further complicating the picture is that Trump's envoy on Middle Eastern affairs and son-in-law, Massad Boulos, is regarded as a lightweight, as well as having assumed pro-Emirati positions. Thus, in the case of the GERD, as in the intervention on behalf of Mohamed bin Salman, Washington will not be considered a neutral arbiter but rather part of a deeply transactionalist foreign policy actor. 

And what does "top of my agenda" entail for Trump, anyway? On the geopolitical front alone, the US is seeking to aggressively reshape the Western hemisphere through some kind of bastardised Monroe Doctrine, grappling with traditional European partners over the future of Greenland and Ukraine, let alone pushing ahead with somehow rebuilding Gaza into the 'Riviera.' But twice in recent months, the US has intervened in matters in the Horn of Africa with a "top of my agenda" statement, both times at the behest of a close Trump ally, rather than through strategic internal processes. Without any broader strategic or ideological coherence to American interests in the Horn of Africa, it is doomed to be sporadic at best-- and destructive at worst. A bullish Abu Dhabi and its proxies, arguably already on the back foot by a resurgent Saudi Arabia, now face the wrong end of American intervention in both the Sudan conflict and the GERD dispute. 

As is the case with Sudan, the gutting of USAID, State Department, and other key repositories of knowledge on the Horn of Africa in Washington means that even if these issues are elevated, there is not the requisite understanding to tackle the nuances. American heft alone cannot prise apart the divergences over the colonial Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1929 and the 1959 Nile Waters Agreement between Khartoum and Cairo, both of which excluded Ethiopia. Indeed, if Ethiopia feels that the US negotiations with Cairo cannot offer anything beyond the tired old script and rhetoric, it has little reason to break from the Emirates or adopt a more nuanced position. And whether Trump follows up on any such negotiations will have to be seen, as will whether Egypt adopts it as a pretext to pursue its own unilateral constraining of Ethiopia and even target the GERD. But Cairo may not have to go to outright war with Ethiopia; it has enough proxies and regional support to make life uncomfortable for a besieged Addis. 

There were plenty of glaring errors committed by the Biden administration regarding the Horn of Africa; perhaps the most egregious of which was relegating the Sudan conflict to the 'Africa file' and out of sight. The brash, self-aggrandising image of Trump as a peacemaker has dominated the headlines since his return to the Oval Office, blending performative dealmaking and commercial self-enrichment. But the question and issues surrounding the GERD have metastasised significantly, and the sense that this is 'merely' a concern about a very large dam with only water security issues to be hammered out is wrong-headed. Instead, the stakes of the complex interplay among bilateral relationships in the Horn have now been turbocharged by the injection of Arab powers into the region, with cash and arms to distribute at whim. Trump's letter may offer a veneer of diplomacy, but it underscores that in the GERD dispute, American intervention serves Cairo's agenda as much as regional stability, leaving Addis little incentive to compromise.

The Ethiopian Cable Team