“Algeria has more to lose than we do”: you sold Palestine, you are arming the Darfur militias — here is the answer, figure by figure

Yasmine Belkacem — Genève, Suisse — 2026-09-13

Method note. Every figure in this article is verifiable: we give the source, the date and, where it exists, the exact name of the series or the document. We invent nothing and we publish no unauthenticated image — such images are circulating, they are doctored, and we will say which ones and why we are leaving them aside. And at the end, we concede what must be conceded.

🗣️ What we are being told from Abu Dhabi

Since the rupture of diplomatic relations decided by Algeria, on 10 September 2026, one sentence has been circulating in Emirati circles and on social media: “Algeria has more to lose than the Emirates”. They supposedly have more money, more partners, and would have no need of Algeria to do business. The tone is that of the lecturer: Algeria is the weak party, the one that must think before it speaks.

We took the three claims, one by one, and confronted them with the figures — their figures, those of their own partners, and those of international institutions. Here is the result.

💰 First claim: “we have no need of Algeria”

Here is the real trade between the two countries. Source: the Egyptian daily Veto Gate, citing the economist Khaled El-Chafei, on 10 September 2026 — the very day of the rupture.

Read that table twice, because it completely overturns the sentence we are being served. Out of every hundred dollars of trade, eighty to eighty-five go from the Emirates to Algeria, and only fifteen to twenty go from Algeria to the Emirates. It is not Algeria that needs the Emirates: it is the other way round.

And what do they sell us? Re-exports of raw materials, technical equipment and plastics. Translation: things that Europe, China or our own factories supply.

And what do we sell them? Food products and mineral materials. We sell them what they eat. We also sell them fuel: more than 13,000 barrels a day of petroleum products refined in Algeria, in December 2025.

And it is not us saying so. It is that Egyptian economist — in an Egyptian newspaper, therefore no friend of Algeria — who concludes that a rupture will cause “no global economic shock” and “no structural paralysis of the Algerian economy”, but only “the search for import alternatives through other markets, first and foremost the European and Chinese markets” (translated from Arabic).

The source, precisely — so that nobody can claim we invented it. These remarks are those of Dr Khaled El-Chafei, economist, recorded by the Egyptian daily Veto Gate and published on 10 September 2026, the very day diplomatic relations were severed. The article is titled: “625 million dollars in trade — Khaled El-Chafei: the crisis between Algeria and the Emirates will not turn into an economic shock”. Here it is, in direct access: https://www.vetogate.com/5729342

And here are his exact words, in Arabic, as published — followed by our translation, so that anyone can check:

« أما سيناريو الصدمة الإقتصادية الشاملة فلا تتجاوز احتمالية 10% لان الاقتصاد الجزائري لا يعتمد على التمويل الإماراتي لسد العجز المالي كما أن الجزائر لا تمتلك ديوانا خارجيا ملموسا للإمارات » (spelling of the original; read “external debt”: دَينًا خارجيًا)

Translation: “As for the full economic shock scenario, its probability does not exceed 10% — because the Algerian economy does not depend on Emirati financing to cover its financial deficit, and Algeria holds no tangible external debt towards the Emirates.”

📉 Their own expert puts a figure on what we supposedly “have to lose”: 10%, and less than 2%

The same interview sets out three scenarios, with his own probabilities. Here they are, exactly as he quantified them:

Keep the third line, and above all the two reasons he gives. On his analysis, there is only a 10% risk of a global shock, because Algeria does not finance itself with the Emirates and owes them nothing.

And here is the figure that should settle the argument for good. Again on his analysis, the Emirates' holdings in Algeria represent less than 2% of all their foreign investments.

Less than 2%. That is what we weigh in their portfolio. And they are the ones telling us that we are the party with “more to lose”.

In other words: they sell us plastic and machines. We buy elsewhere. That is the whole difference between a supplier and a partner.

⚠️ Do not confuse Algeria with Morocco

A convenient confusion is going around, and it must be cleared up at once: the Maghreb is spoken of as a single bloc, as if the two neighbouring countries had the same relationship to Gulf money. That is false — and in fact it is the opposite.

Morocco does need you — and it proved it by signing. It normalized its relations with Israel on 10 December 2020, in the same move as you, under the same hand. And its accounts say the rest: 68.0 billion dollars of external debt for 37.1 billion in reserves, meaning 31 billion dollars more than it owns. Its reserves are borrowed. Its import cover: 5.3 months.

Algeria owes nothing to anyone: 6.9 billion in external debt for 83.0 billion in reserves — that is +76.1 billion, and 16.5 months of import cover, three times more. Source: World Bank, 2024, series FI.RES.TOTL.CD, DT.DOD.DECT.CD and FI.RES.TOTL.MO.

So do not confuse the two. If you are looking for a client in the Maghreb, look on the other side of the border: he signed with you, he borrowed, and he needs your money. We do not need you. Our neighbours do.

🏗️ What they actually own in our country — and why it is not an argument

Here we concede a fact, because it is true. The Emirates own in Algeria assets and investments estimated at between 6 and 10 billion dollars, spread across ports, logistics, mechanical industries, energy, chemicals, real estate and tourism — with DP World at the top of the list. It is real. We do not deny it.

But an asset owned in a country is not power over that country. Those who run a port in Algeria do not own Algeria: they own facilities located in Algeria, subject to Algerian law, on a territory held by the People's National Army, in a country of 48 million inhabitants. That is not sovereignty: it is a grip.

And when it is cut, who loses the asset? The one who built it, not the one who stands on it. A port can change operator. A country does not change neighbours.

This is exactly what the Moroccan press understood before we did: it ran the headline, again this week, “from ports to armoured vehicles: how Abu Dhabi controls the arteries of the Algerian economy”. They are describing a grip. And a grip can be loosened.

🔥 Their economy: sand, foreign employees and towers that are emptying

“We have more money.” Let us look at what that money is made of.

Fact one: their country is not populated by Emiratis. 88% of the population of the United Arab Emirates are foreign nationals — a figure from the agency Reuters. In other words: nine inhabitants out of ten do not have that country as their homeland. They are there for a contract, a salary, a free zone, a visa. The day the contract ends, they leave. A country where 88% of the inhabitants can leave the soil within forty-eight hours is not a power: it is an airport hall.

Fact two: their real estate is cracking. “Dubai’s property market starts to crack” — headline in Semafor, 7 April 2026. It is not an Algerian newspaper. It is not an Arab newspaper. It is an American business outlet.

Fact three: their hotels are emptying. “Inside Dubai’s hidden crisis: tourists flee and luxury hotspots fall silent” — headline in the Daily Mirror, over those same weeks.

Fact four, the most revealing of all: they arrest those who film. In Dubai, people were taken into custody for filming the Iranian attacks against the country's infrastructure — several media outlets reported those arrests, including that of French nationals. A country that has to imprison those who film no longer protects its image: it hides it.

That is the “wealth” held up against us: towers standing on oil, a population that can leave overnight, real estate that is cracking, tourism that is fleeing, and cameras that are confiscated. You do not build a nation with a hall.

And us, meanwhile? We have 48 million inhabitants who will not leave, because it is their country. Not a contract. Not a free zone. A homeland.

🕌 What you signed on 15 September 2020 — and that nobody asked you to sign

Let us now come to what is no longer debatable, because it is written in black and white.

On 15 September 2020, at the White House, the United Arab Emirates signed a text whose official title is exactly this: “Treaty of Peace, Diplomatic Relations and Full Normalization between the United Arab Emirates and the State of Israel”. That is not our interpretation: it is the title of the document published by the White House.

The words “full normalisation” are yours. And the state you normalised with is the one that occupies Al-Aqsa, the first holy site of Islam after Mecca and Medina, and controls its gates.

Five years later, on 15 September 2025, it was the Israeli government itself that published an economic assessment of those five years, on its official website, to celebrate the anniversary. They do not hide it: they congratulate themselves on it. And it is you who gave them that.

While Gaza was being bombed, you were doing business. The figures do not come from us: they come from Israeli customs files. 2,753.3 million dollars of Israeli imports from the Emirates in 2024. And total trade between the Emirates and Israel of 1,747,545,000 dollars in 2025. These are their figures. These are your figures.

There is another file, and it is even heavier. Reports, taken up by the Arab press, have described negotiations between the Emirates, Washington and Israel to take charge of the civil administration of Gaza after the war. The Emirates have denied it. But one question remains open, and nobody has answered it: why was it you they thought of, and not the Palestinians?

And there is the file that is discussed too little, because it embarrasses everyone. The Guardian, on 28 October 2025, revealed that British military equipment used by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan was found on the battlefields — documents passed to the United Nations Security Council. The RSF are accused of genocide in Darfur. And in those documents, the Emirates are directly implicated: they are, the Guardian writes, “repeatedly accused of supplying weapons” to that militia.

Read that sentence slowly, then tell us where the betrayal lies. You talk about business, money, partners, towers, cars and bank cards. Meanwhile, in Darfur, Muslims are being massacred with weapons that passed through your country.

We are not insulting you: we are quoting your signatures. On 15 September 2020, you signed with your own hand. The rest are consequences.

🛡️ What money does not buy, and what we have

They have more money. We have an army.

Algeria's national defence budget for 2026 stands at 3,205.28 billion dinars, or about 24.6 billion dollars. It is the country's largest budget, far ahead of all other sectors. Source: the 2026 finance bill.

That army is not an army for hire. It is not commanded from a foreign general staff, it does not fight through mercenaries, and it is made of the sons of this country, to defend this country.

We threaten no one, and Algeria has never attacked anyone. We say one simple thing: you do not talk to Algeria the way you talk to a client.

And we have something else, which balance sheets do not measure. We have a dignity that cannot be rented, a land that is not a hall, and a faith that is not traded for a contract. Allah is enough for us — and we ask nobody's permission to say so.

⚖️ What we concede, because it is true

We will not say that this rupture costs nothing. It costs: investments that stop, imports to replace, contracts to renegotiate, and — this is the most serious part — the situation of Algerians settled in the Emirates. We therefore ask the state to deal with them as an absolute priority.

Nor will we say that the Emirates is a country without talent. They have built ports, airports, cities and a logistics network the whole world uses. That is true, and it is not nothing.

But a success built on the betrayal of a sacred cause is not a success. It is a calculation — and calculations get revalued.

And one last thing, which is not an administrative decision: that Algeria's position on Palestine is never put on a negotiating table, whatever the price offered. On that, there is nothing to discuss — and that is precisely what our correspondents are asking to be guaranteed.

🎯 The conclusion, in three sentences

Trade between Algeria and the Emirates is 625 million dollars a year, of which 80 to 85% goes from them to us: it is not Algeria that needs the Emirates, it is the other way round.

Their country is 88% foreigners, its real estate is cracking, its hotels are emptying and it arrests those who film: that is the power held up against us.

And on 15 September 2020, at the White House, they signed “full normalisation” with the state that occupies Al-Aqsa. We signed nothing. We are 48 million, we have an army, and we know why we hold.

🚫 The image we will not publish — and why

An image is circulating, claiming to show the Emirati president in the Epstein files. It is doctored, and that is not an opinion: six independent fact-checking newsrooms have demonstrated it — India Today, BOOM Live, The Quint, Newschecker, Vishvas News and Kompas.

We will not publish it, and we are telling you why straight out: because the first person to come along would post the six debunkings under our article, and the whole file would fall with it — including the 15 billion in the Moroccan chart, including the 83 billion in reserves. One fake on our side, and it is the whole newspaper they call fake.

We have no need of fakes. The figures above are enough. They are signed, dated and verifiable.

🔗 The sources, in direct access — click and check for yourself

• Algeria–UAE trade, the 80-85% and the 6 to 10 billion in assets — Veto Gate (Egypt), 10 September 2026: https://www.vetogate.com/5729342
• The rupture of diplomatic relations and the 48 hours given to the ambassador — Africanews, 10 September 2026: https://fr.africanews.com/2026/09/10/lalgerie-rompt-ses-relations-diplomatiques-avec-les-emirats-arabes-unis/
• The 2026 defence budget: 3,205.28 billion dinars, about 24.6 billion dollars — Algerie360: https://www.algerie360.com/plf-2026-lalgerie-prevoit-une-hausse-sans-precedent-du-budget-militaire/
• The 88% of foreign nationals in the Emirates — Reuters, taken up by LANA (Libyan agency): https://lana.gov.ly/post.php?lang=ar&id=360182
• “Dubai’s property market starts to crack” — Semafor, 7 April 2026: https://www.semafor.com/article/04/07/2026/dubais-property-market-starts-to-crack
• “Tourists flee and luxury hotspots fall silent” — Daily Mirror: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/dubais-hidden-crisis-tourists-leave-36998574
• The text of the Abraham Accords, official title, 15 September 2020 — White House: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/white-house-press-release-abraham-accords-peace-agreement-treaty-peace-diplomatic
• The British weapons found in Sudan, the documents passed to the Security Council and the Emirates “repeatedly accused” — The Guardian, 28 October 2025: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/oct/28/uk-military-equipment-rapid-support-forces-rsf-militia-accused-genocide-found-sudan-united-nations
• The reported negotiations on the administration of Gaza, and the Emirati denial — Al-Quds Al-Arabi and Al Jazeera, February 2026: https://www.aljazeera.net/news/2026/2/2/

These links open the cited documents and articles directly. They are enough to rebuild this entire file, claim by claim.

Final note. The dollar amounts are those published by the cited sources, with no rounding other than display. The comments of the Egyptian economist are translated from Arabic by our editorial team. Where a piece of information is only an accusation — Sudan, Gaza — we write “accused”, and we name the one who accuses. Where an image is false, we say so and we do not publish it.