Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi appears to have put off a White House meeting with Donald Trump, with one leading Senate Democratic voice on foreign policy calling the move a major snub.
The U.S. president drew the ire of several key Middle East leaders, including el-Sissi, when he declared earlier this month that the United States would take ownership of Gaza, rebuild it as the “Riviera of the Middle East” and relocate its often-displaced Palestinian population to countries such as Egypt and Jordan.
“If you know anything about Egypt, you know that they do not want to absorb, and especially through a forcible relocation, folks from Gaza,” Virginia Democrat Tim Kaine, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told CQ Roll Call. “El-Sissi has been extremely clear about this for years, and so the president floating this as an idea, obviously, has infuriated him.
