Who decided the U.S and G.B. should import these obelisks and why?

Cleopatra's Needle is the popular name for each of a pair of ancient Egyptian obelisks re-erected in London and New York City in 1877 and 1881 respectively. The removal of the obelisks from Egypt was presided over by Isma'il Pasha, who had greatly indebted the Khedivate of Egypt during its rapid modernization.

The London and New York needles were originally made in Heliopolis (modern Cairo) during the reign of the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Thutmose III. More than 1,000 years later they were moved to the new Caesareum of Alexandria, which had been conceived by Ptolemaic Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt. They stood in Alexandria for almost two millennia.

The London needle was presented to Great Britain in 1819, but remained in Alexandria until 1877 when Sir William James Erasmus Wilson, a distinguished anatomist and dermatologist, sponsored its transportation to London. In the same year, Elbert E. Farman, the then-United States Consul General at Cairo secured the other needle for the United States – the needle was transported by Henry Honychurch Gorringe. Both Wilson and Gorringe published books commemorating the transportation of the Needles: Wilson wrote Cleopatra's Needle: With Brief Notes on Egypt and Egyptian Obelisks (1877)[1] and Gorringe wrote Egyptian Obelisks (1885).[2]

The London needle was placed on the Victoria Embankment, which had been built a few years earlier in 1870, whilst the New York needle was placed in Central Park just outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, also built just a few years earlier in 1872.

Of all cold words of tongue or pen
The worst are these: "I knew him when--"
-Arthur Guiterman, 'Prophets in Their Own Country'

and, From Richard Lederer's 'Adventures of a Verbivore' (good book, btw):

"It's not true that no words rhyme with orange . . . However, there was a
man -- I'm not kidding -- named Henry Honeychurch Gorringe. He was a naval
commander who in the midnineteenth century oversaw the transport of
Cleopatra's Needle to New York's Central Park. Pouncing on this event, the
poet Arthur Guiterman wrote:

In Sparkhill buried lies a man of a mark
Who brought the Obelisk to Central Park,
Redoubtable Commander H. H. Gorringe,
Whose name supplies the long-sought rhyme for orange.

So orange is rhymable."

He does not appear to have led the world's most interesting life either -
some dedicated websearching turned up the following, which for lack of a
better name I'll call a

Biographical Note:

Guiterman, Arthur, American poet, 1871-1943.

On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness
The tusks which clashed in mighty brawls
Of mastodons, are billiard balls.

The sword of Charlemagne the Just
Is Ferric Oxide, known as rust.

The grizzly bear, whose potent hug,
Was feared by all, is now a rug.

Great Caesar's bust is on the shelf,
And I don't feel so well myself.

-- Arthur Guiterman

Guiterman was born of American parents in Vienna. His father was Alexander Gütermann, born in the Bavarian village Redwitz an der Rodach, and his mother was Louisa Wolf, born in Cincinnati.[1] Arthur graduated from the City College of New York in 1891, and later was married in 1909 to Vida Lindo.[2] He was an editor of the Woman's Home Companion and the Literary Digest. In 1910, he cofounded the Poetry Society of America, and later served as its president in 1925–26.[3]

An example of his humour is a poem that talks about modern progress, with rhyming couplets such as "First dentistry was painless;/Then bicycles were chainless". It ends on a more telling note:

persistent, you remind me a lot of lanolin. Are you two related?

If Lanolin is female we are brother and sister in Christ assuming she is Christian or if Lanolin is male same excepting gender change to brother. And it is also to be noted that all people are related. Read your Bible and discover.

I'm no poet but all seriousness aside how about Orangeatan. The primate.

Cleopatra i.e. glory of the father, your needle is on hold: and we don't which Cleopatra this references or do we? We do. Vii Philopator, i.e. the father beloved; Cleo was the ruler with all that paternalistic adulation in the name. What gives? Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51 to 30 BC, and its last active ruler

A little more Guiterman poetry just to loosen up

• Strictly Germ-Proof
  • by Arthur Guiterman (1871-1943)
• The Antiseptic Baby and the Prophylactic Pup
  Were playing in the garden when the Bunny gamboled up;
  They looked upon the creature with a loathing undisguised;
  It wasn’t disinfected and it wasn’t sterilized.
  They said it was microbe and a hotbed of disease;
  They steamed it in a vapor of a thousand-odd degrees;
  They froze it in a freezer that was cold as banished hope
  And washed it in permanganate with carbolated soap.
  In sulphurated hydrogen they steeped its wiggly ears;
  They trimmed its frisky whiskers with a pair of hard-boiled shears;
  They donned their rubber mittens and they took it by the hand
  And ’lected it a member of the Fumigated Band.
  There’s not a micrococcus in the garden where they play;
  They bathe in pure iodoform a dozen times a day;
  And each imbibes his rations from a hygienic cup —
  The Bunny and The Baby and The Prophylactic Pup.

Tourist attraction I guess.