I heard a claim that 40% of Egypt's military budget comes from US Foreign Aid.
US Foreign Aid to Egypt consists of $1.3 billion in unconditional "Foreign Military Financing", and an additional amount of economic aid estimated to be around $0.7 billion. Some argue for including that amount, because it frees up more Egyptian money to be used for military spending.
There are a variety of claims for Egypt's military spending. Reasonable estimates are between $7.1 billion (wikipedia) and $7.6 billion (computed from CIA Factbook figures), although numbers from $4.5 billion to $14 billion are seen. Much of the confusion may come because Egypt's military is very entwined with the rest of the government, and it may be hard to determine which expenditures are for military purposes.
Using $7.1 billion as the number, the percentage is 18% for $1.3b and 28% for $2b. The 28% is close to a 25% claim from CNN. The claim of 40% must come from using the $2 billion for aid, and a very low estimate for spending of around $5 billion.
Why is this important? The current military regime has killed 40 protesters in the past week. If we are providing between 18% and 40% of the money for the Egyptian military, will the United States be culpable of supporting a military dictatorship, if the Egyptian military turns against the people?
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