Editing Suez Crisis (section)

=== American financing for Egypt's Aswan Dam ===
On 16 May 1956, Nasser officially recognized the [[China|People's Republic of China]], which angered the U.S. and Secretary Dulles, a sponsor of the [[Republic of China]].<ref name="Kissinger 529"/> This move, coupled with the impression that the project was beyond Egypt's economic capabilities, caused Eisenhower to withdraw all American financial aid for the [[Aswan Dam]] project on 19 July.<ref name="Kissinger 529"/>

The Eisenhower administration believed that if Nasser were able to secure Soviet economic support for the high dam, that would be beyond the capacity of the Soviet Union to support, and in turn would strain Soviet-Egyptian relations.<ref name="Gaddis, John Lewis, p. 172">{{Harvnb|Gaddis|1998|p=172}}</ref> Eisenhower wrote in March 1956 that "If Egypt finds herself thus isolated from the rest of the Arab world, and with no ally in sight except Soviet Russia, she would very quickly get sick of the prospect and would join us in the search for a just and decent peace in the region".<ref name="Gaddis, John Lewis, p. 172"/> Dulles told his brother, CIA director [[Allen Dulles]], "If they [the Soviets] do make this offer we can make a lot of use of it in propaganda within the satellite bloc. You don't get bread because you are being squeezed to build a dam".<ref name="Gaddis, John Lewis, p. 172"/>

Finally, the Eisenhower administration had become very annoyed at Nasser's efforts to play the United States off against the Soviet Union, and refused to finance the Aswan high dam. As early as September 1955, when Nasser announced the [[Egyptian–Czechoslovak arms deal|purchase of the Soviet military equipment via Czechoslovakia]], Dulles had written that competing for Nasser's favor was probably going to be "an expensive process", one that Dulles wanted to avoid as much as possible.<ref>{{Harvnb|Gaddis|1998|pp=171–172}}</ref>