On the sidelines of the G7 summit in the French city of Évian in mid-June, US President Donald Trump, in the presence of El-Sisi, spoke about the Renaissance Dam crisis, saying: “We will work on helping Egypt. I think Ethiopia has treated you unfairly, and the level of the Nile has become lower than it should be. A dam was built in Ethiopia and it is causing big problems for Egypt, and I am fully aware of that. I had reached a settlement on this issue, then an election brought someone else to power who did not know much about this file, and they did not intend to settle anything, but we will see if we can reach a settlement.”
Experts describe these statements as a revival of discussions that took place before without tangible results. Dr Mokhtar Ghobashy, secretary-general of the Al-Farabi Center for Political and Strategic Studies, affirms that they represent moral support for Egypt’s historical right to the waters of the Nile and nothing more, pointing out that the United States and the World Bank had previously invited the three parties to negotiations, and at the final signing stage Ethiopia held back and Washington could not force it. This is not the first scene of its kind: in his first term Trump sponsored negotiations that produced the “Washington Document” of February 2020, which Egypt initialled but from which Ethiopia held back, so the negotiations froze, and in his second term he made similar statements in July 2025 and January 2026, while the dam was officially inaugurated in September 2025 after its filling was completed at 42 billion cubic metres.
Not the First Time
The United States’ mediation in the Renaissance Dam issue began after an official speech delivered by the Egyptian president during the 74th session of the UN General Assembly, in September 2019, after the negotiations between Egypt and Ethiopia had reached a dead end, in which he said that for Egypt the Nile is a matter of life and a question of existence, noting Egypt’s understanding of Ethiopia’s right to development, but that the process requires reaching a fair and balanced agreement that preserves the rights of all parties.
In the speech, El-Sisi called on the international community to play a constructive role in urging all parties to show flexibility in pursuit of an agreement satisfactory to all. The speech was followed by intensive talks with international partners, which later opened the door for the US administration headed by Donald Trump to intervene and sponsor tripartite negotiations between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia in November of the same year.
Trump directed the US Treasury Secretary and the World Bank to sponsor rounds of negotiations aimed at reaching a comprehensive and binding agreement, and the rounds ended with the drafting of what became known as the “Washington Document” in February 2020, which set out rules for filling and operating the dam and which Egypt initialled, but Ethiopia was absent from the signing, and the negotiations froze.
In September 2020, the US State Department announced that the Trump administration had decided to suspend some aid to Ethiopia because of the lack of progress in the talks with Egypt and Sudan, and some reports estimated that the aid cut was less than $130 million.
At the end of his first term, in October 2020, Trump stated that the situation was very dangerous, that Egypt would not be able to live this way, and that it might end up blowing up the dam if it did not reach an agreement. The statement provoked the anger of the Ethiopian administration, which affirmed that there is no power that can prevent it from building and operating the dam.
After Trump returned to power in his current term, he made several new statements about the Renaissance Dam, beginning in July 2025, when he said during a press conference with the NATO secretary-general that the US administration was working with Ethiopia to resolve the dam crisis.
After the official inauguration of the Renaissance Dam in September last year, Trump said that he had succeeded in averting a potential war between Egypt and Ethiopia over the Renaissance Dam issue, explaining: “They built a dam in Ethiopia that affects the Nile River, and I think this is a big problem.”
In January, Trump returned to talking about mediating between Egypt and Ethiopia to resolve the dispute, and wrote in a letter to the Egyptian president, which he published on his official account on the “Truth Social” platform: “I am ready to restart US mediation between Egypt and Ethiopia to resolve the question of Nile water sharing responsibly and once and for all.”
America Has No Influence over Ethiopia
Dr Gamal Zahran, professor of political science and international relations, believes that the US president’s latest statements are no more than hollow words that carry no meaning and have no influence over Ethiopia; otherwise they would have had an effect on the previous occasions.
Zahran adds, in a statement to Zawia3, that the party of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (Prosperity) won a parliamentary majority that reached 90% in the latest elections, which means that the Ethiopian people are with him, and that the Renaissance Dam is a national project for them, stressing that it was Egypt that agreed to the building of the dam from the start, and that if it had not wanted it, it could have destroyed it before the military solution became a catastrophe, as is the situation now.
Currently, the water level in the lake of Ethiopia’s Renaissance Dam reaches about 625 metres above sea level, equivalent to a massive water storage of 42 billion cubic metres. The dam’s waters constitute a water bomb for the two downstream states, Egypt and Sudan; indeed, in the 2025 flood season Sudan witnessed a rise in the level of the Nile to unprecedented levels, causing floods that swept through several states, which means that fears about the Renaissance Dam today concern not only low water levels in periods of drought but also the risks of flooding in the rainy season. This was confirmed by the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation in a report after the inauguration of the Renaissance Dam in September 2025, stressing that the Renaissance Dam represents a permanent and continuous danger to the two downstream states during periods of drought and of flooding alike.
Zahran says that what keeps Egyptians from feeling the danger of the storage of huge quantities of water behind the dam is Lake Nasser behind the High Dam, which makes up the water deficit in Egypt’s annual share of the Nile, estimated at 55.5 billion cubic metres, but as soon as the lake runs dry or reaches the danger stage, people will feel the drought.
Zahran points to what he described as “contradictory policies”: for example, some Arab states, including the UAE, are the ones financing Ethiopia and the ones fighting us in Sudan, and now Egypt offers it ports, airports and companies. He adds: “I do not claim to understand such contradictions, except that they are cards against Egyptian national security, among them the water card,” noting that there is no will to protect Egyptian national security, because it will affect the water, and if not today, it will be tomorrow.
The political expert says that Egypt created its crisis with its own hands, because the signing of the Declaration of Principles agreement in 2015, which Ethiopia disavowed, as Egypt later accused it of doing, was not subject to the oversight of the people or parliament. Now there is no need to plead with the United States, since in politics nothing comes without a price, and if we turn to it, there are many files with which it could pressure us, among them the Gaza Strip crisis, Israeli gas and the arming of the Gulf states, all of them thorny files related to Egypt.
Zahran affirms that he does not see the United States as holding cards with which to pressure Ethiopia, just as Egypt does not hold cards with which to pressure the United States into imposing a solution to the Renaissance Dam problem on all parties.
Economic Pressure Is the Remaining Solution
Professor of political sociology Said Sadek agrees with Zahran, affirming that the US statements were not translated into specific policies during either the first or the second term of Donald Trump’s presidency, and are therefore merely “talk”, although he acknowledges the United States’ ability to pressure Ethiopia, as it is a country full of problems; but at the same time, why should the United States move when those concerned are doing nothing?
Sadek adds to Zawia3 that many countries in the world have spoken of their support for Egypt’s position on the Renaissance Dam but have not translated this support into actions, among them the European Union, which has strong relations with Egypt but has not stopped trading with Ethiopia, while the Gulf states are still investing in Ethiopia. The matter even reached the Security Council twice, an extremely difficult step that was described as a political victory, but it ended in defeat when Russia and China disregarded turning it into a case because of their investments in Addis Ababa.
He continues that the mistake from the start was the signing of the Declaration of Principles on the Renaissance Dam, without which Ethiopia would not have found international and technological support in the way that happened, since many companies would have been wary of backing the dam because of the legal problems; now, however, we are the ones who have squandered our right, and we have nothing left but the weapon of economic pressure, as the military solution has now become ruled out.
Sadek explains that Egypt is still using the diplomatic approach and a policy of long patience, and has entered into another tactic of preventing Ethiopia from obtaining a port on the Red Sea, and that it can now move at the economic level by persuading countries to stop trading with it if possible. He explained that there is an idea of halting the passage of Ethiopian exports from the Red Sea through the Suez Canal, but under the Constantinople Convention this solution may only be resorted to in a state of war, which has not happened so far.
Since 1993 Ethiopia has been making continuous efforts to gain an outlet on the Red Sea, which Egypt counters with other efforts to thwart its goal, by holding meetings with officials in Eritrea, its northern neighbour, and then Yemen, the strategic gateway on the Red Sea, during which it stresses its rejection of the entry of non-littoral states to that sea for reasons of its national security.
In 2024, after Ethiopia recognised Somaliland as an independent state, it signed with it an agreement that it described as historic, providing for the latter’s consent to lease more than 12 miles of sea access at the port of Berbera for 50 years, with the possibility of extension, to the Ethiopian navy for military and commercial use. Egypt rejected the agreement, calling on Addis Ababa to refrain from engaging in unilateral measures that heighten tension and expose the interests and national security of the region’s countries to risks and threats.
Although Ethiopia currently relies mainly on the port of Djibouti, which overlooks the Red Sea connected to the Suez Canal, Egypt has no power to halt the passage of its trade through the canal by virtue of the Constantinople Convention of 1888, which stipulates that “the free use of the canal shall not be affected in any way, whether in time of war or of peace, and the canal shall never be subjected to the exercise of the right of blockade”, but Article 10 “allows Egypt to take the exceptional measures it deems necessary to secure the defence of its territory and the maintenance of public order”.
The latest US statements reveal that the Renaissance Dam file is still present on the agenda of the international powers, but at the same time they offer no sufficient indication that the resumption of a negotiating track capable of breaking the stalemate that has lasted for years is near. While Cairo’s options appear more complicated after the completion of the dam’s construction and its entry into operation, the bet on tools of diplomatic and economic pressure, alongside regional moves, remains the most realistic path, given that military options have been ruled out and that there is no international will to impose a binding settlement on all parties.
