WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump backed off his threat to withhold aid for Jordan after King Abdullah II agreed during a White House meeting to accept 2,000 ill children from Gaza.
Still, Trump reiterated his desire for the United States to take ownership of Gaza and for Jordan and Egypt to absorb Palestinians, which Arab states are firmly against. He also spoke of creating a “parcel of land” in each of the two nations for Gazans to live in.
The king’s visit to Washington on Tuesday came with the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas increasingly fragile. Hamas, accusing Israel of breaking the terms of the deal, said it would delay the release of the next group of hostages held in Gaza, set for Saturday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the truce will be over and Israel will resume fighting if the captives aren’t freed over the weekend.
In Washington, Abdullah sidestepped questions about Trump’s lightning-rod plan, saying he would discuss the future of Gaza at an upcoming meeting in Saudi Arabia and once Egypt presents a proposal.
The US president called the king’s offer to resettle sick children a “beautiful” gesture and heaped praise on the Jordanian leader.
“We contribute a lot of money to Jordan and to Egypt, by the way, a lot to both,” Trump told reporters. “But I don’t have to threaten that. I think we’re above that.”
Near the start of the meeting, Abdullah said he would get the children, who are either cancer patients or “in a very ill state,” to Jordan “as quickly as possible.”
Trump’s call to turn the Gaza Strip into a US-owned “Riviera” has drawn widespread condemnation in the Middle East and potentially imperilled the Israel-Hamas truce. Arab leaders are wary that moving Gaza’s roughly 2 million Palestinians to Jordan and Egypt could destabilise those countries, as well as end Palestinians’ goal of statehood for Gaza and the West Bank.
Abdullah’s visit to Washington showed how Arab leaders are taking Trump’s proposal seriously and trying to convince him to backtrack.
“I reiterated Jordan’s steadfast position against the displacement of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank,” Abdullah said on X, formerly Twitter, adding the meeting was “constructive.”
“This is the unified Arab position,” he said. “Rebuilding Gaza without displacing the Palestinians and addressing the dire humanitarian situation should be the priority for all.”
From left: Jordan's King Abdullah, US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio attend a meeting in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, the United States, on Tuesday. (Photo: Reuters)
The king had been expected to deliver a message from his cohorts in the region that Trump’s proposal was a non-starter. Critics have said the plan amounts to ethnic cleansing. Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others have repeatedly rejected his plan to relocate Gaza’s Palestinians to other countries to rebuild a strip that he has called a “demolition site.”
Palestinian officials have said the same. Mohammad Mustafa, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, which controls parts of the West Bank, told Bloomberg last month that his organisation could replace Hamas as the governing power in Gaza. He said the Mediterranean territory could be redeveloped after 16 months of war between Israel and Hamas without Palestinians needing to move out.
Trump has indicated several times he is serious about displacement and unwilling to back down in the face of criticism. The president said “no” when asked during a recent Fox News interview if Palestinians would have the right of return to Gaza. He also suggested he could use US foreign aid as leverage against Jordan and Egypt.
“I’m talking about building a permanent place for them” because Gaza is “not habitable,” Trump said in the interview.
Heightened pressure
The president heightened that pressure on Monday ahead of Abdullah’s visit, when he was asked directly by reporters if he would cut off aid to Egypt and Jordan if they did not agree to accept Palestinian refugees.
“Yeah, maybe, sure, why not?” Trump said. “If they don’t, I would conceivably withhold aid.”
The real estate developer-turned-president said on Tuesday, however, that he did not plan to personally buy property in Gaza during his proposed US-led rebuilding effort.
“No,” Trump said. “You could just do more good for people when you’re president.”
Jordan and Egypt were the fourth- and fifth-largest recipients of US aid in 2023, according to an analysis from Bloomberg Economics. But that aid accounts for less than 0.5% of Egypt’s gross domestic product. Jordan is more exposed, with the assistance making up 3% of its GDP.
Fuelling the solidarity with Palestinians is concern among Arab leaders about broader regional stability. In addition to the Gaza conflict, there’s a messy ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon-based Hezbollah, Syria is grappling with the demise of Bashar Al-Assad, and Egypt and Jordan’s leaders have internal security problems. And while Saudi Arabia is mulling a normalisation deal with Israel, it is said that cannot happen until the Jewish state takes steps toward accepting independence for the Palestinians.
All of those dynamics could be rattled if Trump pushed ahead with a forced displacement of Palestinians after a multi-front conflict since October 2023 that has seen tens of thousands of people killed in Gaza, Lebanon and Israel.
Israeli soldiers gather on top of a tank on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, as seen from Israel on Tuesday. (Photo: Reuters)
Regarding the ceasefire in Gaza, Trump has said Israel should resume the war if Hamas, designated a terrorist group by the US and many other countries, does delay the next release of three Israeli hostages.
“If all the hostages aren’t returned by Saturday 12 o’clock — I think it’s an appropriate time — I would say cancel it and all bets are off and let hell break out,” Trump said.
Netanyahu echoed that warning.
“If Hamas does not return our hostages by Saturday noon, the ceasefire will end,” he said. The Israeli military “will resume intense fighting until the final defeat of Hamas.”
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