Today President Trump is meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah II at the White House and once again, Trump is playing hardball.
When Trump first proposed the idea a week ago that the US could take over Gaza and the Palestinian inhabitants would be moved somewhere else, both Jordan and Egypt gave a flat no to the idea. But on Monday Trump suggested that billions in foreign aid are on the chopping block if those two countries don't reconsider.
President Trump said on Monday that he could cut aid to Jordan and Egypt if they refused his demand to permanently take in most Palestinians from Gaza, substantially increasing the pressure on key allies in the region to back his audacious proposal to relocate the entire population of the territory in order to redevelop it...
“If they don’t agree, I would conceivably withhold aid,” he told reporters in response to a question a day before a meeting with King Abdullah II of Jordan...
Asked in the interview whether the Palestinians would eventually “have the right to return” to Gaza after his proposed construction projects had been completed, the president said, “No, they wouldn’t.”
As for where they might go, he said: “I think I could make a deal with Jordan. I think I could make a deal with Egypt.”
That put King Abdullah in a difficult position as he met with Trump at the White House today. And sure enough, Trump pressed his plan again with King Abdullah sitting next to him in front of the cameras.
President Donald Trump made no attempt Tuesday to soften his proposal to relocate Palestinians in Gaza and redevelop the land into premium housing, even as his guest in the Oval Office, King Abdullah II of Jordan, suggested the Arab world was opposed.
Instead, Trump repeated his view that Palestinians should be moved out of the devastated strip to “parcels” in third countries, including Jordan, despite the objections of those countries’ leaders.
King Abdullah didn't agree to all of that but he did make an offer showing some willingness to move in Trump's direction. Specifically, he said Jordan would accept 2.000 sick Gazan children.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II said he would take in 2,000 Palestinian children from Gaza who are very sick or suffering from cancer, signaling new openness to a plan by President Donald Trump to drive a deal that would resettle the residents of the war-torn strip.
Trump called the offer a “beautiful gesture” and said he believed “99%” that something could be worked out with Egypt, another regional partner that had bristled at the president's surprise plan. "We'll have some others helping," Trump added.
At the same time, Trump was asked if he was still considering cutting aid to Jordan and he softened his position a bit saying, "We contribute a lot of money to Jordan and to Egypt, by the way, a lot to both, but I don’t have to threaten that." So Jordan has gone from a no to a willingness to take in a few thousand people and Trump has gone from outright threatening to cut aid to making the threat implied rather than stated.
Jordan's offer to take 2,000 children represents only 0.1% of the total population of Gaza so we still have a long way to go if Trump wants to see this population relocated. Of course if Jordan accepts 2,000 sick children, many of them would be traveling with at least one parent. So maybe the total offer is larger than 2,000 people. In any case, it will still be a fraction of 1% of the population.
We'll also have to wait and see if Egypt, under the same implied threat of losing US aid, will come up with a better offer. But it's probably going to be a very tough sell. Egypt's current president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, is supported by the US specifically because he rejects the Muslim Brotherhood. He replaced the previous Muslim Brotherhood aligned president, Mohamed Morsi, who was removed from office in a coup led by the Egyptian military in 2013. Hamas was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood, so the idea of inviting members of that group to move in and live in Egypt seems like a real stretch. The Muslim Brotherhood also has a long history of assassinating Egyptian presidents they don't like so el-Sisi's neck is personally on the line if a wave of Hamas fanatics move into Egypt. El-Sisi is between a rock and a hard place at the moment.
Update: Here's a bit of the meeting held before the media.
King Abdullah II of Jordan says he’s open to receiving Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank into his country, but he’s still waiting to see Egypt’s plan and Arab Nations summit resolution.
— 𝕸𝖔𝖓𝖆𝖗𝖈𝖍𝖔 (@_monarcho) February 11, 2025
he’s not only a traitor, but also a useless coward smh.pic.twitter.com/iY6d0umOqx
King Abdullah's tone has a changed quite a bit from this statement to the UN.
Hear this Trump & Netanyahu
— Jerry Hicks (@JerryHicksUnite) February 11, 2025
King Abdullah of Jordan couldn’t be clearer:
"We will never accept the forced displacement of Palestinians which is a war crime" pic.twitter.com/Uz98uckByy#Jordan #Trump #Gaza #Palestine #Israel
