Nile megadam: Sissi welcomes Trump’s offer to mediate

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi on Saturday welcomed Donald Trump’s proposal to revive negotiations over Ethiopia’s megadam on the Nile, after more than a decade of tensions and failed diplomatic efforts.

On Friday, the U.S. president said he was “ready to restart mediation” between Cairo and Addis Ababa over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which Egypt, dependent on the Nile for 97 percent of its water needs, has described as an “existential threat.”

“I appreciate President Trump’s attention to the crucial importance of the Nile issue for Egypt,” Sissi wrote on X, underscoring his desire to “cooperate” with the countries along the river “without harming any party.”

Inaugurated on Sep. 9, the GERD, the largest dam in Africa at 1.8 kilometers long and 145 meters high, is expected to double Ethiopia’s electricity production. Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most populous country, still has nearly half of its population without access to electricity.

Egypt, which lies downstream on the Nile, fears the project could reduce its water supply, a resource vital to its agriculture. Built in western Ethiopia, the dam is designed to retain part of the Blue Nile, originating in Ethiopia, before its waters merge with the White Nile in Sudan and flow north into Egypt before reaching the Mediterranean.

Sudan has also “welcomed” the U.S. president’s initiative “to find durable and satisfactory solutions that protect the rights of all,” the country’s de facto leader, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, said Saturday on X.

Multiple mediation efforts over the past decade among the three countries, led at various times by the United States, the World Bank, Russia, the United Arab Emirates and the African Union, have failed.

In a letter sent to Sissi, Trump said he hoped for a solution that would ensure a predictable water supply for Egypt and Sudan, while allowing Ethiopia to sell or supply electricity to the two downstream countries.