U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi Monday at the White House. It is the Egyptian leader’s first official visit to the White House.
Former U.S. President Barack Obama froze aid to Cairo after Egypt’s military, led by then General Sissi, overthrew Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, in 2013. Sissi was elected to the presidency a year later.
Obama did not invite Sissi to the White House and was critical of the military regime’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, which Morsi represented as president. Sissi regards the Brotherhood as a terrorist group.
Monday’s Oval Office meeting is being keenly watched in Cairo where there is intense curiosity about Trump’s intentions toward Egypt and the greater Muslim world following Trump’s ban on citizens from six Muslim majority countries.
The meeting, however, is not the first time the two leaders have met. The two are reported to have gotten along well when candidate Trump met the Egyptian leader in September on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
Sissi is the first of three heads of state who will be visiting Trump this week. On Wednesday, Jordan’s King Abdullah will be a guest in the Oval Office. The following day, Trump will fly to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida for two days of talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
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