April 29, 2025—In just three weeks alone this Spring, the United States spent nearly a billion dollars bombing Yemen. That doesn’t include the cost of the $70 million jet fighter that fell off the USS Harry S. Truman on Monday.
Now, President Trump is looking for payback. In the Middle East, he’s demanding free passage for U.S. ships on Egypt’s Suez Canal that connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea. He wants the same free ride through the Panama Canal in the Americas.
“Those Canals would not exist without the United States of America,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, adding that he asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio to make it happen immediately.
Typical fees for U.S. ships transporting through the Suez Canal vary between $400 and $700,000 per vessel, according to Al Jazeera. The fees go to the Egyptian government’s Suez Canal Authority.
A Transactional Approach to Global Politics
The transactional approach of mixing geopolitics with business is rubbing some leaders sorely, all the more so because it could be just
“Trump wants money, deals, gratitude and triumphs. The sky is the limit for the advantages he seeks for himself and his country,” writes Haitham El Zobaidi, executive editor of Al Arab Publishing House.
In private, Trump is pushing the Egyptians to compensate the United States for keeping the shipping lanes in the Red Sea open. According to reporting in the Wall Street Journal, it’s part of a ploy to extract “financial upsides” for foreign policy.
The Egyptians are not buying into it. Mahmoud Badr, a member of Egyptian parliament posted on social media, “The Suez Canal was built by Egyptians with their blood, nationalized by Egyptians, and is protected by the Egyptian army.”
Meanwhile, Egypt’s Civil Democratic Movement, said Trump’s demand shows “a lack of historical awareness and unacceptable arrogance.” The Maritime Executive quoted the group saying, “The Egyptian people consider the Suez Canal a red line and will never accept any infringement on Egypt’s sovereignty and national security,” the group said in a statement. “They will follow in the footsteps of their fathers and grandfathers in defending their nation’s freedom and territorial integrity.”
Still, it is hard to know where Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi comes down. In March, he reported financial losses of $800 million a month and $7 billion in 2024 due to shipping disruptions in the Red Sea.
The Cost of War
The March 24 SignalGate scandal revealed some hesitancy within the Trump Administration about the cost of the bombing campaign. Vice President J.D. Vance raised concerns that it would not be seen in line with the “America First” slogan. Specifically, he said, only 3 percent of U.S. trade runs through the Suez Canal while 40 percent of European trade relies on the waterway.
The human costs have been much higher. On Sunday, U.S. strikes on a migrant camp in Yemen killed between 70-200 civilian migrants, largely from Ethiopia.
U.S. CENTCOM calls its actions against the Houthis fighters “Operation Rough Rider.” The Houthis say they are fighting to free the Palestinians in Gaza from a deadly siege on humanitarian aid.
Many shipping companies have rerouted traffic away from the Red Sea while hostilities remain active.
