After the jailing of opposition leader Ayman Nour, the United States has decided to halt free trade talks with Egypt for the meantime. It is a sign of growing American willingness to make the distinctive link between the economic benefits it can bestow and the nature of the governments we do business with.

The decision highlighted a growing rift with an important Middle Eastern ally after it held an election for president last September that the United States described as highly flawed.

Egypt had been eager to work out an agreement that would reduce or eliminate tariffs and increase trade between the countries and had been pushing Washington to make a public announcement that formal negotiations were to begin.

But late last month an Egyptian court sentenced Ayman Nour to five years of forced labor for election law violations that American officials describe as false charges. Mr. Nour won 7 percent of the vote in the multiparty election, Egypt’s first for president, placing second to Hosni Mubarak, the longtime ruler.

As a result, early this month, Washington told Cairo that this would “not be an appropriate time” to announce negotiations, a senior American official said.

I wrote extensively about Ayman Nour’s jailing, and suggested that now would be the perfect time to re-examine our gift of $2 billion a year in financial aid to the Egyptian government. This looks like a good, hopeful start in implementing steps that let Mubarak know we aren’t messing around with our reform agenda for the Middle East.