Why Egypt's New Capital is Bankrupting the Country

something incredible is rising out of what used to be the middle of nowhere in the Sahara Desert 28 M or 45 km east of Egypt's current capital city Cairo the Egyptian government is busy building a massive and exorbitantly expensive brand new capital city from scratch an official new name for this new capital city has not yet been chosen and so it so far has only been referred to by its placeholder name the new administrative Capital once it's completed the Egyptian government plans to fully relocate all of its offices and Personnel from the old capital in Cairo and the government willing encourage every foreign country who has an embassy in Egypt to relocate their own staff to the new capital as well the government hopes that the new capital will one day be home to 62 million residents after it's finished being built which will almost certainly make it the largest new settlement founded anywhere in the world in the 21st century if it all goes according to plan but for now despite all of the Grandeur and scale this massive glittery New Capital City rising out of the empty desert remains about as empty as the aid environment that surrounds it welc construction has gotten itself far behind schedule and enormously over budget when the new capital was initially proposed back in 2015 the Egyptian government claimed that it would all be constructed for only $45 billion and largely finished by 2022 but now in 2024 only a handful of government Ministries have been moved in no foreign embassies have relocated at all and construction is still ongoing while the cost for only phase one of the new capital has already ballooned to more than $58 billion 13 billion dollars over budget there are many reasons why but a big part of it is simply because of the sheer scale and opulence that's being put on display by the government here phase one of the new capital has included the development of multiple different districts within the new city that will serve various different purposes and many of them include some of the most outrageous and absurd buildings ever conceived of in human history one of these districts arising from the Sands is the government District that will become the Egyptian State's brand new nerve center once completed this district is intended to become the new headquarters for 34 of Egypt's government Ministries in addition to the country's two chambers of parliament the House of Representatives and the Senate at 550 acres in size this government district will be Approximately 80% larger than the National Mall is within America's capital Washington DC and it'll contain several more imposing buildings than are present in Washington including the world's tallest flag pole dubbed the Cairo flag pole it was already raised in 2021 and stands 27 M or 680 ft High considerably taller than the Washington Monument is in DC while the flag it flies is roughly the same size as two standard basketball courts placed side by side just to the north of this sprawling government district is another District of about equivalent size but which is fully dedicated to only housing the new presidential Palace complex which will become the new home residence of Egypt's President the building that encompasses the presidential Palace itself is enormous at around 50,000 square m of total floor space which for perspective is roughly 10 times larger than the White House in Washington DC that serves as the American president's residence and leaked photos of the inside of the Egyptian Palace have revealed what appears to be an ornate Throne Hall that resembles the opulent palaces of Islamic Sultans from centuries past that has allegedly been decorated with solid gold and then the walls that surround the palace complex will include a series of gardens that Sproul across an estate more than two square kilometers in area that's roughly four times as large as the waloff Vatican City is that's the home of the Pope the new presidential Palace complex alone has reportedly cost the Egyptian State somewhere around $3 billion to construct which puts it on a scale of opulence comparable to Buckingham Palace in London that's the home of the British monarch and which has independently been valued by appraisers to be worth approximately $5 billion over on the opposite southern end of the government district is Egypt's new Islamic cultural Center a mega mosque that is also sometimes officially referred to as the Egyptian Grand Mosque inaugurated only last year in 2023 the Grand Mosque was a huge undertaking drawing from traditional medieval Egyptian mamalu Islamic architecture it covers an area of 250,000 square m and can accommodate more than 131,000 worshippers at a given time which not only makes it the largest mosque in Egypt but the largest mosque on the entire African continent and the largest mosque in in the Middle East outside of Saudi Arabia's holiest mosques in Mecca and Medina the Egyptian Grand Mosque broke multiple World Records when it was completed including the heaviest and largest chandelier in the world this more than 53,000 lb or 24,000 kg in weight with a diameter of 72 ft or 22 M and the highest pulpit in the world it's nearly 17 M or 55 ft tall and it's not even the only Mega religious building to have been constructed in the new capital there's also the newly built Nativity of Christ Cathedral nearby a mega church that's the biggest church to have ever been constructed in the Middle East the church is a cathedral dedicated to Egypt's Coptic Orthodox community and the construction of the cathedral so close to the Grand Mosque within the new capital was deliberately designed as a symbol of peaceful coexistence between Egypt's two largest religious communities well it's estimated that around 90% of Egypt's contemporary population are followers of Sunni Islam the remaining 10% of the population rested to be Coptic Orthodox Christians which makes them by far Egypt's largest religious minority group and with a population of around 11 million in Egypt they're also by far the largest Christian Community in the Middle East as well further west to these new religious buildings in the government district is going to be the new Capitol Central business district with some highly ambitious projects of its own among them is the already completed iconic Tower which was built with the help of the China State construction Engineering Corporation with a total of 79 floors coming out to 1,293 Ft or 394 m in height the iconic Tower is already the tallest building in Africa with an exterior shell designed to resemble the crown worn by the ancient Egyptian godam moon as depicted in Egyptian hieroglyphics but apparently not satisfied with merely having the tallest building in Africa the new capitals planners are evidently still plotting to construct the tallest building in the entire world within the new Central business district as well that'll be called the oblisco copy taking its design inspiration from an ancient Obelisk of fonic Egypt this Mega tall skyscraper is currently planned to have a total of 165 floors and a total architectural height of 1,000 M or an entire kilometer construction on the building is currently expected to begin sometime this year in 2024 and if completed by its Target finishing date of 2030 it will seize the title of the tallest structure in the world from the current record holder the bur Khalifa in Dubai which would only stand 170 m shorter than the oblisco copy Tall might but the cost of this massive building will carry with it an equally massive price tag currently estimated to be at least another $3. 2 billion and even that is probably a big underestimation and since Egypt is already beginning to encounter some pretty serious financial difficulties it remains to be seen whether or not this part of the project will actually end up getting built or not then there's also the brand new Olympic City complex with than the new capital which is being specifically built to enable Egypt to be competitive when they submit bids to host major worldwide sporting events in the future like the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup more than 22 separate sporting facilities are being constructed within the complex including a major Neo association football stadium that will have a seating capacity for 94,000 people which will make it the second largest football stadium in Africa and the eighth largest one worldwide and then in Phase one's southwest corner is rising the single largest district and building in the entire New Capital the new headquarters for the Egyptian Ministry of Defense known as the Octagon considered far too important and large to be mirely contained within the regular government District of the new capital that houses all of the 34 other Egyptian government Ministries the ministry of defense's new headquarters here will consist of 10 new buildings in an octagonal shape that will Sproul across an area of more than 22,000 Acres which is larger than the independent nation of San Marino that's owned to 34,000 people the Octagon floor space across these 10 buildings will include approximately 505 million square ft of area under roof which will make it by far the biggest office building at defense headquarters of any military in the entire world coming in with nearly eight times as much floor space as the Pentagon near Washington DC that serves as the headquarters for the US Department of Defense this is despite the fact that 1 of Egypt's defense budget is provided as a grant by the United States and even with that Grant the Egyptian defense budget is currently only the 35th largest in the world and is lower than that of Belgium which isn't exactly well known for being a military Powerhouse deserving of the largest military defense complex in the world at any rate connecting all of these districts together will be the Green River Park flowing through the new capital Center designed to symbolize the flow of the Nile River itself through Egypt in its first phase undergoing its finishing touches right now the park will be 6 M or about 10 km long which will make it double the size of Central Park in New York City and when it's extended out to its fully intended size in the future phases it's expected to reach an almost comical length of 22 M or 35 km which will make it roughly six times larger than New York Central Park by then eight fully residential districts are also planned to be constructed along the park perimeter interspersed between wide Avenues and highways that connect to the government business religious and sports districts with other smaller districts I didn't even cover like an entirely separate sports city a knowledge city intended to be the site of foreign universities an arts and culture City a banking District a Medical Campus an expo City for hosting major conventions and a brand new big International Airport with all of that being crammed together in here it's fairly easy to see how it's gotten to the point where the Egyptians have already blown through more than $58 billion building this thing and it's all coming at a time when Egypt's government debt has soore to alltime highs inflation is soore to all-time highs the Egyptian currency is crashed to all-time lows and the country is facing its worst economic crisis in decades tens of billions of dollars are being blown on this extravagant New Capital City while onethird of the Egyptian population continues to live in poverty and the people are dealing with all-time high inflation in an all-time low valued currency and so perhaps understandably there's a genuine concern among many that this flashy New Capital arising in the desert is contributing to the bankruptcy of the entire country and few believe that Egypt can actually afford this scale of extravagance in the desert and so that then begs the question why is the Egyptian government apparently so willing to bankrupt itself to build this massive new capital city in the first place officially the Egyptian government has stated that this new administrative Capital project is primarily necessary to relieve congestion and reduce overpopulation in Cairo itself which is a very big and crippling issue that the country is actually struggling to address Egypt's true shape isn't really what you see it as on maps because most of the country is dominated by the inhospitable Sahara Desert where Agriculture and life are each practically impossible where it not for the seemingly endless supplies of water in the N River that carves across this Barren landscape and fans out in the north across a Delta region that empties out into the Mediterranean Egypt would likely be as sparsely populated and Barren as neighboring Libya which only has a population of fewer than 7 million people but Egypt does have the Nile and the Nile has brought Egypt life for thousands of years it carves out what is the largest Oasis in the entire world and even today provides an overwhelming 97% of Egypt's entire supply of freshwat the Nile Valley and the Nile Delta regions of Egypt are therefore the true cores of the country and everything else around it to the west and to the East are basically empty deserts that are largely only useful for serving as protective buffer zones of the core and while the Nile River is very long it is also very narrow which makes the valley in the delta regions combined only about the same area as Slovakia and Europe but 95% of Egypt's entire contemporary population lives within either the small Valley or the small Delta regions and with a total estimated population in 2024 of 107 million people that's about 102 million Egyptians who are all crammed up into a space that's only about the same size as Slovakia which is roughly equivalent to the combined populations of all of Spain and Italy this makes Egypt's core area within the Nile Valley and Delta among the most densely populated and overcrowded places in the entire world with an average population density across the region of at least 2,000 people per square kilometer this is Egypt's true shape and so if Egypt's population density was more accurately measured as being just the density within the Nile Valley and Delta it would be ranked as the third most densely populated country in the world remaining only behind the tiny city states of Monaco and Singapore and Egypt's population has been growing rapidly for decades now now 74 years ago now back in 1950 the entire Egyptian population Nationwide was only a little more than 21 million people and within a single lifetime since then the country's population has exploded more than five times over again to the current estimated population of around 107 million the largest population in the Middle East and it's only expected to continue growing even further from here for several more decades to come as of 2023 the fertility rate in Egypt has remained well above the world average and continues to sit at around 2. 8 children per woman and though it has been decreasing with time Egypt's population is still projected to climb up to 160 million people by the middle of the century in 2050 which will only add further population strains on an already very overcrowded country for an American perspective Egypt's projected population density in the Nile Valley and Delta by 2050 would be almost like cramming the entire combined populations of California Texas Florida New York York Pennsylvania Illinois and Ohio all simply into the state of West Virginia Cairo alone the current capital and largest city has swelled almost to the Breaking Point with people having more than nine times its population since 1950 to the point where today the city's Metropolitan region is home to more than 22.

6 million people more people than were even alive across all of Egypt back in 1950 and which makes Cairo the most populous Metropolis in Africa and the fifth most populous Metropolis Worldwide having just recent recently surpassed Mexico City to clinge the number five spot and it will climb up several more spots further in the near future at the current projected levels of growth in Cairo if nothing is done about it the city's Metropolitan region is expected to soar up to around 38 million people by 2050 about the same population as Tokyo has today by then Cairo will likely be the second largest metropolitan area in the world remaining only behind the un's projections for Mumbai in India which is likely to by then become the number one largest City Cairo has ever since become almost synonymous with brutal traffic and congestion to the point where Cairo sometimes hardly even functions the government's Ministries were built spread out across the city back when it was much much smaller and less congested decades or even centuries ago and around cairo's Central taher Square are many of the government's most important buildings such as the parliament the ministry of the Interior the ministerial cabinet the United States Embassy the Supreme Court and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs since security arounded between all of these buildings is often necessary and streets are often cordoned off it's sometimes literally impossible to travel between two separate points in the city which makes government operations and economic activity both monstrously inefficient but the problem is that Egypt doesn't really have very much available space to build new housing to pull the population away from Cairo they have precious little available Farmland to the north of Cairo in the Nile Delta or further south through the Nile Valley which eliminates large scale Urban expansion into either of those directions that leaves the other unattractive choice of expanding to the east or the west of Cairo into the Sahara desert but since it's a less terrible option than expanding north or south and destroying preciously limited agricultural land that's what the Egyptians have tried doing for decades the outskirts around Cairo are littered with the attempts of previous presidential administrations in Egypt to build new cities to pull population away from Cairo like the 6th of October City to the West the 10th of Ramadan City to the Northeast alabor City and the biggest project before the recent New Capital Project New Cairo City established in 2000 that's today home to 1 and A2 million people but hardly any public transportation was built linking any of these new satellite cities in the desert back to Cairo While most of the housing Supply in them was dedicated only to higher end housing so the only Egyptians who could relocate themselves out of Cairo into them were higher income citizens who own cars which aren't very many people which is why all of these satellite Desert Cities are only partially inhabited and have considered fewer residents living in them than they were originally designed for but Egypt's current president Abdel fatal CeCe has been repeatedly vocal about his belief that Egypt's overpopulation problem is the biggest crisis the country is currently facing in 2017 his government rolled out the two is enough campaign in Cairo encouraging Egyptian families to limit themselves to only having two children Eli has also praised China's Infamous one child policy during speeches in the past and he has tasked his own government to reduce the nation wide fertility rate down from the current 2. 85 to just 2. 11 by the early 2030s and in addition to reducing the country's fertility rate occe has also become the latest in a long running line of Egyptian presidents to try his hand at building a new city Beyond Cairo to relieve the city of some of its dense population and congestion which is why LC's government hopes that the new administrative Capital project that they're building out in the desert will eventually be home to 62 million people but relieving gestion and overpopulation in Cairo is really just the publicly stated reason for the whole big project the other more quiet and less official reason is to reduce the odds of Eli and his authoritarian military regime from getting overthrown during a revolution or a couet while simultaneously enriching himself and his supporters along the way back in the early 2010s Egypt was a pretty unstable Place politically the country had been ruled for nearly 30 years by a single longtime strongman leader named hosy Mubarak who had by 2011 for a variety of reasons fallen out of favor with most of his people protests against his continued leadership gathered in Cairo Central tah Square nearby to many of the Egyptian government's most important offices and the protest steadily evolved into a full-blown Revolution that forced mubaric from Power the Egyptian Armed Forces then stepped in to temporarily assume power in the country until a democratic election could be hosted that came the following Year in 2012 which saw the Egyptian people democratically elect an islamist to power from the Muslim Brotherhood party known as Muhammad morsey morsey then went on to attempt and create a new islamist leaning constitution in Egypt which sparked further outrage in the country and led to renewed Mass protests erupting again just the following year in 2013 that were finally taken advantage of by Mor's then Minister of Defense General Abdel fat CI Eli initiated a military couet TI against Mory and forcibly over through him from power and then when fresh new elections were hosted in 2014 they were boycotted by all of the country opposition parties occe emerged as Egypt's new president part of what had made it so possible for protesters and revolutionaries to overthrow the Egyptian government twice in 2011 and again in 2013 was their ability to mass literally millions of people into Cairo Central taher Square that overwhelmed the narrow streets with blockades that eliminated the government's ability to access or even defend its important offices nearby which forced the government into conceding to their demands it was how El CC Rose to power in Egypt in the first place and learning from the mistakes of his predecessors it wasn't a coincidence that within a year of him securing power with the presidency in 2014 Eli announced the plans for the brand new capital city in 2015 by the time it's eventually finished there will hardly be any government power remaining within Cairo at all all of the government's Ministries the Parliament and LCC himself will have all relocated themselves 23 miles or 45 km east of Cairo putting all of that distance between themselves and the tens of Millions ions of everyday Egyptians left behind in order to replicate the successful Revolutions of 2011 and 2013 millions of Egyptians would have to travel out of their way from Cairo to the new capital and since only around a quarter of cairo's population even owns a car that means that most of them are going to have to travel by foot which will take about 13 hours to walk across the Sahara desert with likely multiple military checkpoints placed all along the way and then to complicate any potential rebellion's odds of success in the new cap Capital even further the new capital is being designed in a way to make any protest there as difficult as possible all of the roads and avenues are designed to be as wide as possible to make barricading them as challenging as possible a design that replicates many other Capital Cities from around the world more than 6,000 security cameras are intended to be installed within the new capital city that is directly inspired from Chinese government surveillance systems complete with a similar Chinese fashioned Central Command surveillance system that will track everything going on in the capital all times through the thousands of cameras live broadcasts the city will include hardly any public transportation which will make moving the masses around it challenging while the presence of the military's massive new headquarters so nearby at the Octagon complex will allow the entire might of the Egyptian Military to rapidly deploy a Crackdown against any potential threats once completed the new capital will firmly separate the Egyptian government and head of state from the Egyptian people like a 21st century version of ver son die more than 340 years ago French King Louis the 14th made a similar policy decision when he relocated his entire court in seat of government away from Paris towards his new exorbitant Palace at Versa about 12 Mi or 19 km away from the center of Paris for the next Century after the move was made Versailles acted as the deao capital of France over Paris isolating the French monarchy and government from the people they ruled over in Paris and separating their problems from the King but in the end the French government's move to Versailles made little difference as in 1789 more than a century after the move was made the French Revolution exploded and forced the monarchy and the government back to Paris at gunpoint where it has remained at ever since and like Versa did for the French nobility in separating the government from the people the brand new Egyptian Capital being built today is directly enriching the government of Eli and his military supporters as well in the beginning when the new capital city was announced back in 2015 L's government prompt that not 1 cent of Egyptian State funds would be contributed to the new capital's construction investors from the United Arab Emirates were originally planned to finance the entire project but that original plan ended up falling through when Chinese investors largely backed out of the new capital project as well L's government was forced to finance the construction of everything through Egypt's public resources by taking on loans increasing the government's debt selling state-owned land or by directly allocating parts of the government budget to the construction itself and after the UAE investors fell through on the new capital the Egyptian government simply set up a brand new company to oversee the capital's construction going forward that they've called the administrative capital for Urban Development or acud which is interestingly owned 51% by the Egyptian Military and only 49% owned by the Egyptian housing Ministry this company is the one whoes most of the government contracts to carry out the grandio construction projects going on within the capital and their financials are completely non-transparent and not subjected to public auditing or independent oversight which is very convenient high ranking members of the Egyptian Military are significant shareholders suppliers or supervisors for the construction work going on and they're likely all profiting to the tune of billions of dollars off of the work and since most of the money for the capital has come from Egypt's public resources this entire new capital city project has essentially been a massive wealth transfer from the Egyptian public to the Egyptian generals and to LCC himself and as the whole project has become a bottomless black hole for money with more than 58 billion dumped into it already Egypt has had to take on more loans and more debt to pay for it all as crisis after crisis since 2015 has pounded the country's finances even further after LCC in the military overthrew morsy in the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013 an islamist Insurgency in opposition to the new military regime has been raised Aging in the vast rugged sparsely populated and difficult to control Cai Peninsula the Egyptian Army has lost more than 3,200 soldiers fighting against this Insurgency in the Sinai since it began which is more than how many US troops were lost across 20 years of counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan the Sinai Insurgency has represented the most major internal security crisis for the Egyptian state to deal with while multiple external crises have made Egypt's economic situation even worse there was the covid-19 pandemic that began in 2020 that rocked every country in the world and then Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 impacted Egypt especially hard because of their exports of wheat to the country without enough aable land along the narrow banks of the Nile to provide for its own buring population growth Egypt has been forced to import the majority of its wheat supplies from abroad which has made the country the largest wheat importer in the entire world roughly 55% of the country's wheat Supply was imported from abroad and in 2022 immediately before the war in Ukraine began about 60% of Egypt's imported wheat was coming from Russia and another 22% of it was coming from Ukraine the outbreak of war in Ukraine and in the Black Sea sent Global wheat prices skyrocketing and hampered Egypt's access to its usual sources of imports which rocked the country's economy even further then in early 2023 a catastrophic Civil War exploded immediately to the south of Egypt and Sudan which is sent hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing northward into Egypt and then in October of 2023 another massive war exploded on Egypt's borders in Gaza between Israel and Hamas which dealt an even further double shock to the Egyptian economy tourism to the country which usually contributes roughly 8% of the country's GDP and which provided roughly $4 billion worth of revenues for Egypt in 2023 completely crashed in the wake of the massive war breaking out directly next door in Gaza while at the same time the wars after shocks have devast stated another major Revenue source for Cairo as well the Suez Canal the canal is generally understood to probably be the greatest single asset that Egypt possesses since in a given year roughly 12% of all Global Seaborn trade will pass through it and the Egyptian government profits off of it by charging tolls and fees on all of that trade to use the canal in the fiscal year from Summer 2022 to Summer 2023 the Suez Canal returned an all-time high Revenue stream to the Egyptian government of 9.

4 billion but since then the houthis an Iranian backed faction in Yemen who controls most of the country's major population centers declared that they would begin attacking Israeli American and British Merchant shipping nearby them in the Red Sea in support of their Ally Hamas and Gaza those attacks have ended up being fairly indiscriminate on Merchant shipping from just about everywhere and it's caused a massive crash in merchant shipping traveling through the Red Sea in the Suz Canal which is correspondingly caused the revenue coming to Egypt from the tolls on the Suz Canal to crash by roughly half as a result of all of these crises piling up on top of each other for Egypt recently and due to the government's continued drive forward with plowing tens of billions of dollars into the new capital anyway despite them Egypt's financial situation has deteriorated to its most dire scene in decades since LCC formerly became Egypt's President a decade ago back in 2014 Egypt's external debt levels have quadrupled to more than $164 billion while the entire government debt including internal debt has soared to nearly $370 billion which is roughly 93% of the country's total GDP and again 44% of Egypt's total national debt is Zed externally by comparison the United States national debt is currently at 123% of its GDP a larger percentage than Egypts but only 24% of America's national debt is owed externally a much lower percentage than Egypts many of these external loans to Egypt have come from the international monetary fund or IMF which Egypt now owes approximately $18 billion to as of 2023 which currently makes Egypt the second largest IMF debtor in the World Behind only Argentina in order to secure many of these loans over the past several years the Egyptian government was required to devalue its currency many many times five rounds of the Egyptian currency being devalued later since 2016 but the latest devaluation taky plays just a few days before I released this video the Egyptian pound the country's currency has lost about 90% of its value compared to the US dollar since occe took office as the country's president with1 us now trading on the market for around 50 Egyptian pounds when it used to be $1 us for five Egyptian pounds back in 2016 correspondingly these frequent and sharp devaluations in Egypt's currency combined with unexpected price shocks to Egypt's imported resources like wheat and oil due to the war in Ukraine have led to skyrocketing inflation in the country which has peaked at an annual rate of 36% which are the highest levels of inflation that Egypt has ever seen in its modern history the cratering value of the Egyptian currency and the country's exploding debt has also meant that as of 2024 the country is spending around 60% of its entire government budget simply servicing all of its debt obligations all while construction on the glittery new capital is continued on with very little cuts from the original plan being made the plans for affordable housing in the new capital appear to have been cut while construction on the mon rail line that was intended to link downtown Cairo with the new capital also appears to have been halted as well which are all maybe features rather than bugs designed to further separate the wealthy Egyptians connected to the government in the new capital from the poor everyday Egyptians left behind in Cairo and as recently as December of last year in 2023 Bloomberg economists had ranked Egypt as the second most likely country in the world to default on its deaths remaining only just barely behind the odds of War torn Ukraine defaulting on its own debts and there's few ways for Egypt's current regime to really get itself out of this mess the IMF has demanded that 's military dominated government begin loosening its own control over the economy to enable an environment for private businesses to thrive the Egyptian Military dominates pretty much every facet of the economy in the country from construction to tourism to even food production and pharmaceutical the Egyptian Military owns and operates most of the major businesses in the country's economy themselves the Egyptian Military has often been referred to as being a state within a state inside of Egypt and so if the former General turned president El CE he was to turn on them by privatizing many of their business interests they would probably just turn on him and overthrow him and replace him with somebody else which means that he's largely powerless to actually adopt most of the economic reforms in Egypt that organizations like the IMF have demanded which means he's more likely to keep being dependent on continuing the country's economic Doom cycle by borrowing more money from abroad and increasing the debt to pay for servicing the previous debt which will continue to run the currency into the ground and increase the country's inflation rate which pisses off the Egyptian public against him even more which increases his own personal need to have a brand new capital separate from the people who could overthrow him even further which increases his needs to keep pouring money into finishing the new capital project which increases his needs for acquiring more loans and starting the Doom cycle all over again it is all by far far the worst economic crisis that Egypt has ever faced in its modern history and people have been predicting Egypt's imminent collapse beneath all of these pressures for years now but far from collapsing more money from abroad has just continued gushing into Egypt to keep the country alive and functioning anyway despite all of its troubles because to many people on the outside Egypt is simply too big of a country to ever allow it to collapse especially right now well economically Egypt is only a fairly minor power in the middle East with a much smaller GDP than turkey Saudi Arabia the United Arab Emirates and Israel the country has by far the Region's largest human population and a governmental collapse with that many people in this region could cause untold amounts of chaos the gulf Arab states led by Saudi Arabia with the UAE Bahrain and Kuwait tagging along have also all been heavily geopolitically incentivized to keep a stable government around in Egypt who they can actually get along with the European Union Market represents a major export destination for tens of billions of dollars of oil and gas a year from around the Persian Gulf and the quickest and most economical route for all of that oil and gas to take to Europe is through the Suz Canal across Egypt without the Suz Canal the Persian Gulf States would stand to lose untold amounts of money by sending their oil and gas exports to Europe the long way around the entirety of Africa so a compliant and stable government within Egypt that continues letting them use the canal for cheap is imperative to them this is a big reason why Saudi Arabia the UAE and Kuwait all became highly concerned with the Egypt's government in 2012 when the islamist Muhammad morsy and his Muslim Brotherhood came to power in the country after the chaos of the 2011 Revolution like most political islamist movements the Muslim Brotherhood advocates for the supremacy of the Islamic faith and government over what they view as secular man-made monarchies like the Saudis which is why the Saudis the Emirates Kuwait and Bahrain all interpret the Brotherhood as a major direct threat to their own monarchical Rule and which is why most of them have even gone so far as to formally designate the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization you see there's a sort of cold war going on across the Middle East between the monarchist gulf Arab powers on one side led by the Saudis and amadis who are opposed to political islamist movements like the Brotherhood and on the other side are the countries who more openly back political islamist movements in the region led by The Duo of turkey and Qatar so when the Brotherhood came to power in Egypt in 2012 turkey and Qatar were each delighted while the Saudis and amadis were terrified not wishing to see Egypt fall into the camp of their political islamist Rivals the Saudis Emirates and kuwes all backed abdelati cce's military coup that overthrew the Brotherhood government in Egypt in 2013 and Egypt's military dominated government has firmly remained within their anti-islamist dominated faction ever since in order to then keep the country's stability going in the midst of its huge recent economic problems the gulf Arab State sunk more than $34 billion in the Red Sea region and increased influence over both Israel and Jordan as well and the Saudis haven't even been the only ones buying up strategically valuable land in Egypt to fund the country's government and keep it from collapsing in March of 2024 just as I was making this video the United Arab Emirates confirmed that they would be investing a truly massive $35 billion into Egypt for the exclusive rights to develop multiple new projects in the country including $24 billion for the Emirates exclusive rights to develop the rossel hecma area on a cape on the Egyptian Mediterranean Shoreline around 200 km west of Egypt's second largest city Alexandria the Emirates now plan to transform this area into a massive new seaside resort town on the Mediterranean that they hope they'll eventually be able to profit from while the injection of so much Emirate cash into the desperate Egyptian economy likely averted the country from defaulting this year and facing a catastrophic new crisis it represents the single largest foreign investment ever put into Egypt in its entire history and it represents more money than the Gulf States collectively poured into Egypt for a decade between 2013 and 2022 which is perhaps a sign of how dire the economic situation had truly become in Egypt and the amirati cash for Egyptian assets like Ras Al hecma hasn't even been the only money the country has received recently Egypt stability is important to the European Union too because the country is one of the primary Avenues of Refugee and migrant flows into Southern European countries like Greece and so rather than see the country's economy collapse and the unpredictability that would follow from that the EU has recently been floating the idea around of an 8 billion Aid package to Egypt as well and Egypt and its stability is also very very very important to the United States as well Egypt was after all the very first Arab country to ever make peace with Israel and recognized the Jewish State back in 1979 ever since then Washington is s a trans form Egypt's early recognition of Israel's existence into an example for the rest of the Arab world to follow by basically rewarding Egypt as much as possible for having done it Egypt alongside Israel each became officially classified by Washington as major non-nato allies in 1989 and each have become the pillars of Washington's military strategy and footprint in the Middle East region ever since since making peace with Israel in 1979 Egypt has been the second largest recipient of United States foreign aid in the world only after Israel itself and a whopping $ 51 billion of that American foreign aid to Egypt has been military aid since 1985 All American military aid to Egypt has been considered grants that have never been needed to be paid back and Washington is usually maintained a grant of about $1. 3 billion in military aid to Egypt on an annual basis ever since Egypt's willingness to cooperate with Israel and its possession of the Suez Canal both make it a highly important partner to Washington because the canal enables a American warships including aircraft carriers to rapidly redeploy between the Mediterranean theater and the Indo Pacific which enables American warships to quickly move between threats posed by States like Russia Syria or Libya in the Mediterranean and threats posed by States like Iran and their proxies like the houthis in the Indo Pacific moreover the sus Canal also provides the quickest possible trade route for Persian Gulf oil and gas to reach America's NATO allies in Europe which has become even more important since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began and European NATO allies increased Reliance on Persian Gulf oil and gas and replacement of Russian oil and gas and Egypt's stability became even more important to Washington after the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas and Gaza after October 7th Egypt controls the only border with Gaza that isn't controlled by the Israelis and with the war still raging there and with other potential conflicts that could break out in Lebanon and the Red Sea or with Iran itself Washington does not want Egypt to collapse into a revolution again that could could end up adding fuel to the already burning fire in the region with an unpredictable new government and so Washington 2o has been incentivized to continue providing Egypt with its generous foreign aid to Washington along with the Israelis and the gulf era monarchies L CC may be an authoritarian leader who's burning tens of billions of dollars building an economically destructive brand new capital city in the desert as his country's economy collapses and as his people grow poorer but he's also predictable reliable and most of all friendly to them in a region of the world that is almost synonymous with geopolitics violence and instability and they can take advantage of Egypt's need for cash by buying some of Egypt's assets at Bargain Bin prices along the way the area on the map that Egypt occupies and its massive population makes it simply too big for any of LC's outside allies to ever allow it to fail which enables LCC and the Egyptian Military to continue borrowing enough money from them or selling enough assets to them to continue staying AF float but it's all a delicate house of cards that risks Egypt's outside backers eventually losing patience are calculating that the cost of supporting egyp stability are no longer worth the high price that they're paying Egypt's New Capital arising in the desert is the symbol of this International calculus that considers the value of Egypt's geopolitical worth stacked up against a seemingly bottomless Money Pit so long as the equation remains in Egypt's favor their construction on the mega projects in the new capital are likely to continue moving forward word but if the calculus ever shifts and Egypt's outside supporters stop sending in more cash then Egypt's new administrative Capital may become tested by the Egyptian people the same way that Versailles was tested by the French people more than 235 years ago now there's a lot of data that goes into producing these kinds of videos whether it's showing how tall Egypt's proposed Mega tall skyscraper will stack up against the Bish Khalifa how Egypt's new military headquarters at the Octagon compares to the sovereign country of San Marino what Egypt's population density pattern looks like or why Saudi Arabia wanted to purchase these islands from Egypt the ability to visualize raw data like this on the map is exactly what makes learning about these things so fascinating to me and it's why the exploring data visually course is one of my favorite courses that I've ever taken with this video sponsor brilliant. org brilliant.

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