“Who are they to dictate to us how our country should be run? The Egyptian people don’t need the United States and would be much happier if they left us alone,” said Ahmed Tansour, a 26-year-old Egyptian graffiti artist who on Wednesday was busy practicing his English-language skills so that he could tag “No more U.S. in Egypt” on a wall in downtown Cairo.

“If they think that their money can tell us what to do, they will soon learn they are very wrong,” he said.

Like many Egyptians, Tansour said he believes accounts in the Egyptian press that U.S. money helped start the revolution that ousted longtime Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in 2011 and then installed the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate for president, Mohammed Morsi. This summer, Tansour celebrated the Egyptian army’s removal of Morsi from office alongside millions of Egyptians and earlier this week took part in nationalistic Oct. 6 celebrations that glorified the Egyptian army and its top general Abdel Fattah Sisi.

“All of Egypt loves Sisi. If the U.S. doesn’t want to love Sisi they can go to hell,” he said.