IMF, Egypt, and the Gulf

Well, this this is all part of in my opinion, this is all part of the The UAE and Saudi Arabia's, The Gulf generally, including Qatar. Qatar is a bit of an outlier. They're a bit of a spoiler in a way, and that the other sort of acts on their own. But the the GCC generally, led by Saudi Arabia and The UAE, are as I've said many times, creating what appears to be a kind of a soft empire across the region. They're increasing their influence and they're increasing their leverage and operating incredibly strategically.

You can like it or not like it, but in my opinion, it it it offsets western domination. It offsets western control. Because for example, back in 2016 when Egypt first got the what was at the time, the biggest loan ever granted by the IMF to a Middle Eastern country. They got $12,000,000,000, a $12,000,000,000 agreement from the IMF in November 2016. And at the time, that was something that we were opposed to and rightly so, we were opposed to.

And we we were making efforts to try to derail that agreement, but we were only successful in getting it postponed until eventually it did pass. And Egypt at that time, my assessment was that Egypt it was game over in Egypt because they had succumbed to IMF pressure, economic pressure, financial pressure and sold their sovereignty to the IMF. And if once you take a loan from the IMF, you've basically put your whole country and your whole economy on the chopping block. You put your whole country on the auction block. Your your entire economy goes on the auction block for Western multinationals and foreign investors implementing the IMF reforms, the structural adjustment reforms, meant, you know, the neoliberal reforms, the hollowing out of the economy, the selling off of state assets, the subordination or the subjugation of the economy for the purpose of repaying debt, subordinating the entire economy to debt repayment, which functionally means giving foreign investors and multinationals free rein.

And many steps were made. For example, they they imposed or they implemented a policy of not allowing any third party so called third party initiated lawsuits against foreign investors. It lawsuit had to either be initiated by one of the partners of the investors themselves or by the government. So the third party here refers to the population. So anyone who was affected by any business activity or project, even if that even that even if that included land confiscation or contamination or anything like this or human or or even human rights or civil rights abuses, Anyone who was a victim of that, who wasn't a business partner of the foreign company or who wasn't a member of the government, was not allowed to initiate any sort of a lawsuit against the company.

So there there were many steps that took place in and around and shortly after 2016 that showed that, in fact, yes, the the that Egypt had been subjugated by the West, by Western economic powers, by the OCGFC, the owners and controllers of global financialized capital in the West. We were aware, of course, of the money that was being pumped into Egypt by specifically The UAE, but also Saudi Arabia. But as I said, most of us, including myself, thought that that had nothing to do with with anything other than trying to suppress the Muslim brotherhood and to prop up for the sake of the West their their candidate, Dafar Sisi. Time has shown that The UAE and Saudi Arabia had much grander ambitions. And I think that this now this this, what, $35,000,000,000 investment project that they have in the Ras Al Hikma is one indication of that.

And they have also said earlier or late last year, they said that they're not going to be providing any more funding to Egypt unconditionally. They're going to put terms and conditions. And those terms and conditions will probably mirror some of the terms and conditions of the IMF because at this point you can say that The UAE and Saudi Arabia are more or less working in conjunction with the IMF because they've seen how the IMF works and what they do. They've seen that the IMF comes in and smashes up an economy, smashes up the the domestic economy, and then basically tenderizes it for its consumption by Western multinationals and foreign investors. So they've seen that process, and they have identified that that's actually an opportunity for them, not only for Western multinationals.

So they are letting the IMF impose the conditions, and they are insisting that Sisi and the the Egyptian government seeds to those demands and implements those so called structural adjustment reforms for the Egyptian economy precisely so that it will do the damage to the Egyptian economy that the IMF wants to have done to the Egyptian economy, but they're going to step in instead of or in conjunction with western multinationals, with western investors. So you're seeing now Egypt having been more or less destroyed economically by the by the IMF. But instead of western multinationals moving in, western foreign investors moving in, Muslims are are moving in and taking over. So I think that the that the GCC countries are working in conjunction with the IMF for their own benefit and for their own for their own advantage and to increase their leverage and their sphere of influence because as I've said many times, they're creating a soft empire and their their influence and their power is spreading throughout the region. And again, you can feel however you wanna feel about it.

You can think whatever you wanna think about people like Mohammed bin Salman and Mohammed bin Zayed. But they're doing what they're doing and if they weren't doing it, it would just be BlackRock alone. It would just be Larry Fink alone. It would just be Goldman Sachs. It would just be Western multinationals, Western OCGFC, Western economic elites, Western foreign investors coming in and taking over Egypt and enslaving it and exploiting it and pillaging the economy and the resources for their own benefit.

As it is now, what's happening is that the Gulf countries, the Muslim countries are moving in and doing it themselves. And I don't see any reason why anyone would not prefer that to just stark Western domination. So there's a lot of things going on here. Egypt has joined BRICS. They forged closer ties with Russia and with China.

Obviously, have very close ties with The Gulf. And they are coordinating along with the other BRICS nations in responding to the genocide in Gaza. And they are they're they're as I've said many times, they're in formation. They're they're all of the BRICS nations and all of the Gulf nations are taking a are are making a united stance, are taking a united stance. And they all seem to be working from the same playbook.

They all seem to be following the same plan and and the same script. And that wouldn't be the case. Egypt wouldn't be able to do that without that Gulf money being pumped into their economy. It's precisely because money from The UAE and money from Saudi Arabia has been pumped into the economy that they have that degree of autonomy and that degree of sovereignty. If that hadn't happened, then they would be completely subject and vulnerable and helpless to follow the edicts from Washington.

So the fact that the IMF has done what they so the fact that the IMF did what they did and increased the vulnerability of Egypt with the intention of making it vulnerable to western domination. The Gulf countries have moved in and changed that fate. They changed the fate, in my opinion. They changed the fate of Egypt, which it was heading for very rapidly as of 2016. But between 2016 and 2024, that fate has changed.

And instead of being completely shackled by Western companies and Western foreign investors, now they have a degree of autonomy. They have a degree of sovereignty. They can they can operate with a degree of independence and defiance of the West precisely because of Gulf Muslim investment in their countries. And also because of that And and it's also because of that that investment and because of that money and that degree of financial support that the Gulf countries have been giving Egypt, that Egypt has been free to in fact pursue relationships with Russia and China. I mean, have an agreement now with Russia to build four nuclear reactors along the Northern Coast, I think.

And as far as I know, that's still on schedule. Although, I think it was delayed because of the the pandemic and the Ukraine war. But as far as I know, that plan is still in place. Now the IMF has been wanting as we know, of course, the the the Egyptian military, the Egyptian army has the largest holds the largest stake in the private economy of Egypt in in in business and companies and so on. The military owned companies are more than any other.

So the IMF has demanded that those be restructured because they want to they want they want to get their hands on those military honed companies. And that's something that Sisi has been fighting tooth and nail. That's one of the things that's been some something of a red line for him in terms of implementing what the IMF has asked for. Otherwise, he's done as much as he can to follow the IMF plan and to subjugate and to sabotage the Egyptian economy according to IMF demands as much as he can. And that's why the Egyptian economy has been in such a free fall for the last few years.

But the military home companies is kind of a red line for him because, you know, that's one of the reasons why I think he even stepped up in the first place to perform the coup against Mohammed Morsi was because he was afraid that if Mohammed Morsi was in power and Mohammed Morsi implemented the IMF reforms, then he would without hesitation put the military owned firms on the auction block for foreign multinationals to acquire. So he wanted to protect the military's assets. He wanted to protect the military's business assets and their stake in the economy. So he stepped in so that he could oversee the implementation of the IMF reforms and and protect his own people, the army, and protect their financial assets, their economic assets. But now, as I said, The UAE and Saudi Arabia have said that we're not gonna keep giving you money without any conditions.

And some of the conditions that we want to be met are the same as the conditions of the IMF. And in fact, this new $35,000,000,000 investment is expected to is expected to open the door for another, I think, $10,000,000,000 loan from the IMF, which will again come with those same structural adjustment reform demands and conditions. And The UAE and Saudi Arabia are likely to tell Egypt to adhere to those demands with the intention that we will swoop in and buy those companies if they if they privatize. I mean, currency in Egypt, the Egyptian pound has lost more than more than half of its value since February 2022, and food prices have increased by more than 70% since August 2022. It's out of control.

But, you know, but but as I said, Egypt has joined breaks and steps are being taken to, I think, increase the autonomy, the political independence, and to one degree or another the economic sovereignty of Egypt. But the economic sovereignty of Egypt is connected and dependent. So there's a it's it's dependent on the Gulf States. And now also it will it will also increase in its relationship with Turkey because they're pursuing that as well. So you can you can almost say that the economic sovereignty of Egypt is a sovereignty insofar as it is not as subjugated to the West as it once was or as it was planned to be by the West after the coup.

Their intention when they when they helped get Sisi in power in 2013 was that Egypt would now be completely under their control and the the economy would be completely subjugated for western interests. That was their intention and that's what Egypt would be. Now the economy has been subjugated, but the beneficiaries of that subjugation have not been The United States. The beneficiaries have been more, I think, other Muslim countries, The Gulf, Saudi Arabia, UAE. And again, steps are being taken.

They're working in conjunction with the IMF, but steps are being taken. One of one of the things that the IMF does is that they want you to once they give you a loan, then they then they want you to prioritize making the payments on that loan, including the interest, of course, which depletes your dollar reserves because you have to pay that back in dollars. You receive it in dollars, have to pay it back in dollars. So that depletes your foreign currency reserves. Well, Egypt is starting to de dollarize in their trade.

Increasingly, they're not trading in dollars anymore. So whatever dollars they have, they can now direct towards those loan repayments without depleting the reserves that they need in order to continue importing and exporting and trading with other countries because of the dedollarization efforts, because of the moves for dedollarization. So they're solving that problem little by little. I mean, for Egypt with the their their loan situation is so bad that 45 percent of all revenue in Egypt for the government, 45% of all government revenue in Egypt goes towards paying interest on the loans. And, of course, you you and at the same time that you have these loans and you have to make payments on these loans, you you you Sisi has been spending pretty heavily on infrastructure, including a, what, $50.58, 60,000,000,000 plan for a new capital.

So they're spending a lot of money, which which just perpetuates the dependency cycle. It it it perpetuates the vulnerability. Although it it also, you know, it superficially is good for the economy because you have these projects going and it creates jobs and they're they're the types of projects that can potentially bring revenue. But at the in in the meantime, you're spending. And half of your revenue is going to just pay interest on loans.

So it's it's no wonder that they're running out of money. But I mean, when you're but so so when they're when they're conducting their trade in currencies other than the US dollar, then it can help with with any dollar reserve shortages that they're dealing with. By engaging in trade using currencies other than the US dollar, a country can accumulate reserves in various currencies. This diversification then will reduce the dependency on holding a substantial amount of US dollars, so those dollars will be available to make the loan repayments. Because because look, you have to understand that the IMF isn't really interested in getting the money back.

When they when they when they give you a loan, they're not actually interested in getting that money back. They're interested in you being in you being a debt slave. So if you can pay it back, then you pay your way out of slavery, and they don't want you to pay it back. They want you to be a slave. That's why they gave you the money.

For them, it's not a loan. It's a purchase. They're buying you. But the the the wildcard here or the unexpected development here is that they're the IMF is giving you the loan so that they can buy you, but then but then another buyer comes, a buyer from Dubai, a buyer from Riyadh, and they outbid everybody else. And they have an an actual interest in the region to not just exploit it, to not just burn and loot the way foreign investors would do from other countries from the West.

So they are they are interested in integrating Egypt into their sphere of influence. They don't wanna just pillage the economy. They wanna control the economy and they wanna stabilize the economy. They wanna make it part of an entire regional project. And as I said before, this is in conjunction they're they're achieving that through utilizing the IMF process so that it can create opportunities for them for investment and for control and for their own form of domination.

But it's either that or western domination, so I don't know what you would prefer, but I prefer that it would be Muslims that that holds sway over the Egyptian economy and that that they are integrating that country and that economy into a broader economic and political project in the region, which means they have a stake in it. They'll they'll have a stake in the stability and the prosperity of Egypt. Whereas if it's western multinationals, they generally don't. They are there to exploit and pillage and just extract whatever resources they can. Consequences be damned for the domestic population.

But if you have people who are who are but if you have people who are managing if you have people who are managing your economy, who have a stake in it, who actually have a stake in the economy and in the actual geographic region that you're in. If they're in the same region and they have a stake in that region and they have a whole project that will span from North Africa to Turkey, then then that's an entire region that they want to see stable and prosperous. And and and yeah. And this is why I think that and as I said, you know, they're doing this also with with some degree of partnership with BlackRock. I mean, there's not an official, for example, there's not an official relationship between BlackRock and the and Abu Dhabi in terms of this this particular $35,000,000,000 investment in Egypt in Raza Hikma.

There's not an official connection between them and BlackRock, but BlackRock and Abu Dhabi have a connection. I mean, they just started something about well, I can't remember the name of it, but it's an organization for climate like, renewable energy financing, a framework for financing. Right. So they I mean, they're they're working together. They have a relationship.

And as we know, the the head of Aramco is on the is on the board of BlackRock. So they're they're all working together. But you can you okay. Sure. There's some danger involved in that.

As I've said, there's some danger involved in that because we know how we know how Black Rock is. We know how the Western OCGFC operate. But they were gonna operate that like that anyway. They were going to be coming into the region anyway. And we know what it looks like when they get their way without any mitigating presence of out of OCGFC.

When there's no mitigating presence, when there's no mitigating partner in their projects, we know what that looks like. It looks like war and devastation. That's all it looks like. It looks like shock and awe and bloodshed and carnage. If they if they hadn't been no.

If they hadn't been this kind of a partnership, in my opinion, if they hadn't been this kind of a partnership and this kind of a a grand strategy and this kind of a plan for the region between Abu Dhabi and Riyadh and BlackRock, then I think we we already would have had a war with Iran. That would have already happened. And and and every single person in Gaza would have already been driven out or killed. That would have already happened. But because they they they have made these plans to develop the region, think, the way their plans and the way their their ambitions in the region play out are gonna be different because there's other people involved.

And those other people are Arabs, those other people are Muslims, those other people have their own project that they wanna see pursued. And like I said, it it it comes down to a kind of a soft empire. I know. No. I I I've never said that they're doing it for the sake of Islam.

I've never said that. I've never said that. I've never said that Mohammed bin Salman is the next Salahadim. I've never said that they're pursuing what they're pursuing for any other reason than personal ambition and power ambition. I've never said that they're doing what they're doing for any other reason than for the same reason why any power player does what they do, which is to increase and consolidate their power.

But it doesn't matter because at the end of that, it's better. At the end of that, whatever their intention is, the result of that is better. It's better for the region. It's better for the Muslims overall. It's certainly better than if the OCGFC got to do whatever they wanted to do in the region without any mitigating partnership with the Arab rulers.

And if you can't see that, then you have a very short memory and and even less foresight.