Concerned by Ethiopia’s unilateral decision to start filling the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) before an agreement, the United States has partially paused aid it has been giving to Ethiopia. The Trump administration has chopped close to 130 million dollars from funds appropriated to support Ethiopia's defence and counter-terrorism activities.

The United States, which jumped into the negotiation between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt as an observer but later upgraded its role to that of a mediator, has been pressuring Ethiopia to sign an agreement before starting to fill the Dam. However, Ethiopia, which strongly believes the Dam filling is part of the construction and cannot be up for negotiations, finalised the first water filling this July before the negotiations between the three countries ended.

The United States and the World Bank intervened in the negotiations, which involved water filling and operations of the Dam as well as drought mitigation, last November. The talks have moved back and forth between Washington, DC, and the capitals of the three African countries but have not proved conclusive.

Ethiopia has then lobbied for the talks to be turned over to the African Union to sort out the differences between the three countries. Trilateral negotiations over the Dam are now taking place under the mediation of the African Union.

The United States has been increasingly concerned by the lack of progress toward finalizing an agreement, according to a statement the United States Embassy in Addis Abeba sent to Fortune.

“The decision to temporarily pause certain assistance for Ethiopia reflects our concern about Ethiopia’s unilateral decision to begin filling the Dam before an agreement and safety measures were in place," reads the statement from the Embassy.

However, the pause does not apply to already committed funds and humanitarian relief, according to the Embassy.

“The pause doesn't apply to humanitarian assistance or to funding that has already been committed for development programmes,” reads the statement.

Over the past two decades, the United States has provided over 13 billion dollars in assistance to Ethiopia, four billion of which was given in the last five years.

For the current year, the United States gave Ethiopia 230 million dollars in aid for economic growth, agriculture, education and good governance. The funding that was funneled through USAID aims at supporting Ethiopia’s capacity in health, nutrition, education, agriculture, food security, democracy, governance, and community resilience activities.