US President Donald Trump has pledged to help resolve Egypt’s water dispute with Ethiopia, which has completed a massive dam on the Nile River that Egypt says threatens its share of vital water resources.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi quickly welcomed Trump’s remarks and praised him as a man of peace. Ethiopia announced the dam’s construction is complete and has invited both Egypt and Sudan—countries downstream that have long opposed the project—to attend its inauguration.
The $4 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), a hydroelectric project on the Blue Nile near Sudan’s border, began construction in 2011. The Blue Nile is the river’s main tributary.
“If I were Egypt, I would want to make sure there’s water in the Nile. We are working on that,” Trump said during a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at the White House.
He described the dam as blocking the flow of the Nile and called the river a critical source of life and income. “To take that away is pretty incredible,” he said. “But we think it’s going to be solved very quickly.”
President El Sisi responded on Facebook, saying Egypt appreciated the US President’s position as a sign of Washington’s commitment to resolving conflicts under Trump’s leadership. He referenced global hotspots including Ukraine, Gaza, and parts of Africa.
“Egypt values President Trump’s efforts to reach a fair agreement that protects the interests of all those affected by the dam,” El Sisi wrote. “His remarks on the Nile as a source of life for Egypt are highly appreciated.”
He also reaffirmed Egypt’s support for Trump as a peacemaker across the region and the world.
El Sisi’s show of support comes amid strained ties between the two allies due to the war in Gaza, which has been ongoing since October 2023 along Egypt’s eastern border. Egypt is particularly alarmed by Trump’s suggestion to resettle Gaza’s 2.3 million residents in the Sinai Peninsula or in Jordan. Cairo sees this idea as a grave threat to national security.
In protest of Trump’s Gaza resettlement plan, first floated in January, El Sisi postponed a planned visit to Washington in February, sources told The National. Trump also left Egypt out of his Middle East tour in May.
Egypt, home to more than 107 million people, is almost entirely dependent on the Nile for fresh water. Officials in Cairo have repeatedly warned that any reduction in flow caused by the GERD would be catastrophic, potentially eliminating millions of farming jobs and undermining food security.
Sudan, which borders Ethiopia and Egypt, is worried that any structural failure of the dam could result in widespread flooding. It has also raised concerns about the lack of data from Ethiopia regarding the dam’s operations.
For years, Egypt and Sudan negotiated with Ethiopia to reach a binding agreement on how the dam would be filled and managed. These talks produced no final deal.
In the past two years, criticism of Ethiopia’s actions has quieted. Sudan has been consumed by a civil war since April 2023, while Egypt has not suffered from the recent annual dam fillings, which concluded last summer. Abundant rainfall in the Ethiopian highlands helped maintain the flow of the Nile.
With the dam’s reservoir now full, Egypt’s main concern is what Ethiopia will do during future droughts and whether it will release enough water downstream to avoid disaster.
