By Anne Gearan and Michael Birnbaum

Anti-American protests that started in Cairo and spread across the Muslim world have stalled negotiations to provide crucial U.S. economic assistance to Egypt, U.S. officials said Monday.

The violent demonstrations sparked by an anti-Islam video, and Egypt’s initially clumsy response, have temporarily halted talks about a proposed $1 billion in debt relief and how to speed millions in other aid to Egypt, according to several U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the news media.

No new aid is likely to be approved for Egypt until after the U.S. presidential election, and talks aimed at breaking a logjam on spending funds already approved are on hold, the officials said. Several U.S. officials said that the delays are expected to be temporary and that there is no major reevaluation of U.S. aid to Egypt.

“Folks are going to wait and see how things materialize both with the protests and on Capitol Hill,” a congressional aide said.

The roughly $1.5 billion in annual U.S. aid to Egypt represents crucial economic assistance to a nation the United States has long considered an essential Arab partner — despite recent concerns about the new government dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood. In addition to that assistance, President Obama has proposed $1 billion in debt relief for Egypt, which owes Washington about $3 billion.

In the aftermath of the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak last year, Congress attached conditions to U.S. aid, including a requirement that the State Department certify that Egypt is abiding by its peace treaty with Israel. Now some lawmakers are talking about adding more conditions.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee called a hearing this week to examine U.S. relations with Egypt, but it was canceled Monday after the State Department declined to provide witnesses, committee spokesman Steve Sutton said.

A senior congressional staffer suggested that the course of events in the next couple of weeks will determine the long-term fate of U.S. assistance to Egypt. Other U.S. officials cast the delay as a natural reaction to the violence and a test of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s resolve, but they stressed that the United States is unlikely to set stringent conditions on aid or debt relief.

“We are continuing to work with the Hill on the support that we think is important to support those very forces of moderation, change, democracy, openness in Egypt that are very important for defeating extremism of the kind that we saw,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Monday.

Nuland said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton would talk to Congress soon about U.S. aid and other issues affected by the protests.

Anti-American protests near the U.S. Embassy in Egypt stretched from Tuesday until Saturday last week, with many demonstrators calling for the U.S. ambassador to be tossed out of the country.

Just days before protests erupted outside the fortress-like embassy compound, American and Egyptian officials had been in the final stages of negotiating the details of assistance that could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

A delegation of 120 U.S. business leaders was in Cairo at the time of the protest as part of a related State Department effort to drum up foreign investment, which Egypt needs badly to help its economy recover.

U.S. and Egyptian officials had hoped to resolve much of the debt relief plan by the end of this month, but U.S. and other officials said those discussions are now likely to drag on through the fall. Any new congressional action on Egypt will have to wait, too, because Congress adjourns next week until after the Nov. 6 election.

Read more at Washington Post

From Act for America:

Last week, we sent out an urgent Action Alert asking you to register opposition to any kind of taxpayer funded assistance for either Egypt or Libya. We did this to send a message that we will not reward countries that do not prevent or forcibly condemn attacks on our embassies. We will not accept delayed and weak responses to those heinous attacks by the leadership of those countries.
As we noted in a follow-up e-mail, the calls have been coming in and your voice is being heard by those that represent you in Washington, DC. This is what grassroots strength is all about and again we thank you.
First, we have good news to report. Yesterday’s Washington Post reports that the violent anti-American protests in Egypt and elsewhere have “temporarily halted talks about a proposed $1 billion in debt relief and how to speed millions in other aid to Egypt, according to several U.S. officials.” See the full article HERE.
That said, it has been reported that later this week Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be up on Capitol Hill to ask legislators to continue sending the billions of dollars in U.S. foreign aid (YOUR hard-earned taxpayer dollars) to Egypt and other countries exhibiting violent protests against our embassies.
To counter Secretary Clinton’s funding pitch to the U.S. Congress, we are asking you to once again place calls to the federal legislators listed below. We ask that you register your opposition to any U.S. tax dollars being sent to these countries that are currently hostile toward our nation. Let them know that you do not support funding our enemies.
** ACTION ITEM **
Please take a moment once today to call the numbers listed below.
Tell these federal legislators respectfully, but firmly, that you are opposed to U.S. taxpayer dollars going toward ANYmilitary funding for Egypt or Libya until they demonstrate that they are true allies of the United States.