AMMAN, Jordan — Jordan's King Abdullah II is heading into what is expected to be one of the toughest meetings of his quarter-century reign Tuesday at the White House.
President Trump set the stage for a fraught face-to-face with a plan he announced last week to relocate some 2 million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Jordan and Egypt. Both countries have said they are strongly opposed to the plan, which Israel's leadership has embraced.
"Yeah maybe, sure, why not?" Trump told reporters when asked if he was considering cutting aid to Jordan and Egypt if they did not agree to take Gaza's 2 million Palestinians the day before the White House meeting.
"If they don't I would conceivably withhold aid," he said.
Trump's plan, articulated without consultation with Jordan or Egypt, would involve the U.S. taking over Gaza, a small Palestinian territory with a Mediterranean coastline. The "Riviera" of the Middle East he said he envisions would be rebuilt from the destruction of more than a year of war between Israel and Hamas. United Nations officials say 70% of the Palestinian territory's structures are damaged or destroyed.
Seizing Gaza and expelling its population would be illegal under international law, United Nations officials and legal experts have warned.
It would also breach a key part of the peace deal Jordan signed with Israel three decades ago.
"Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel precisely because it did not want a solution at Jordan's expense," said former Jordanian foreign minister Marwan Muasher.
"This is an existential issue to Jordan that does not lend itself to any economic pressure from the United States," said Muasher, now vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Many of Jordan's citizens are descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled or were expelled from their homes during and after the creation of Israel in the late 1940s and were never allowed back. Jordan and other Arab countries have historically resisted accommodating more Palestinian refugees out of fear that it would weaken the case for a Palestinian state and the refugees' right to return.
Muasher said the brake to Trump's plans could be Saudi resistance. Trump has made clear he wants to broker a normalization agreement between Saudi Arabia, the most powerful Gulf state, and Israel. Saudi Arabia last week said expelling Palestinians would stand in the way of any normalization talks.
"Those are very strong words," says Muasher. The White House "probably will take the Saudi position very seriously."
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