Egypt’s Sisi Has Bigger Problems Than Selling Rockets to Russia
Rampant food inflation is inflicting deep pain in the Middle East’s most populous country, where about half of its 104 million people live near or below the poverty line.
Increasingly out of reach.
Photographer: Photo by Fadel Dawod/Getty Images
You wouldn’t know it from this week’s headlines, but the most pressing question about Egypt is not whether General Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has been planning to arm Russia, but how he’s planning to feed his people. His regime is pushing back against a Washington Post report about a clandestine effort by Cairo to supply Moscow with munitions for use against Ukraine. But the general can’t deny the far more serious crisis on his hands: Rampant food inflation is inflicting deep pain in the Middle East’s most populous country, where about half the population of 104 million people live near or below the poverty line.
On the day the Washington Post published its story, citing a leaked Pentagon intelligence document, Egypt’s state-run statistics agency reported that consumer prices rose an annual 32.7% in March, the fastest in almost six years. The rise was fueled by a staggering 62.9% rise in food and beverage costs.