The White House announced plans on Monday to help "Arab Spring" countries swept by revolutions with more than $800 million in economic aid, while maintaining US military aid to Egypt.
In his annual budget message to Congress, President Barack Obama asked that military aid to Egypt be kept at the level of recent years - $1.3 billion - despite a crisis triggered by an Egyptian probe targeting American democracy activists.
The proposals are part of Obama's budget request for fiscal year 2013, which begins October 1. His requests need the approval of Congress, where some lawmakers want to cut overseas spending to address US budget shortfalls and are particularly angry at Egypt.
Obama proposed $51.6 billion in funding for the US State Department and foreign aid overall, when $8.2 billion in assistance to war zones is included. The "core budget" for the category would increase by 1.6 percent, officials said.
Most of the economic aid for the Arab Spring countries - $770 million - would go to establish a new "Middle East and North Africa Incentive Fund," the president said in his budget plan.
Analysts said it was difficult to tell how much of the proposal was actually new money. "As presented it's very difficult to determine if the Arab spring fund is new wine in new bottles or old wine in new bottles," said John Norris, a former US foreign aid worker now at the Center for American Progress.
The Middle East and North Africa Incentive fund "will provide incentives for long-term economic, political, and trade reforms to countries in transition - and to countries prepared to make reforms proactively," the White House budget document said.
The proposal said this approach "expands our bilateral economic support in countries such as Tunisia and Yemen, where transitions are already underway."
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