Cnn
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Like most meetings by President Donald Trump these days, Tuesday talks with King Abdullah II of Jordan will turn around the conclusion of an agreement – at least in the mind of the president.
A week after offering a new cheeky plan to take control of the Gaza Strip and redevelop it in a “Riviera du Middle East”, Trump seems determined to negotiate his eccentric plan in reality.
“I’m talking about starting to build,” said Trump this weekend, “and I think I could conclude an agreement with Jordan. I think I could conclude an agreement with Egypt.”
In this case, the agreement he is considering apparently implies Jordan and Egypt by accepting millions of new Palestinian refugees – on their constant objections – so that Trump can erase the rubble from the Demon Gaza Strip, build new Glass turns with Mediterranean views and invite “the world in the world people” to move in.
As a lever, Trump exercises billions of dollars in American assistance provided each year to Jordan and Egypt, without which these countries could be confronted with disastrous financial problems.
“Yeah, maybe, of course, why not?” Trump responded in the oval office on Monday evening when he was asked if he would hold American aid from Jordan and Egypt. “If they don’t, I would refuse help, yes.”
However, Cairo and Amman are not without leverage: the two closely align their security policies with Washington, and the two have played a role in the protection of Israel in the past – including last year, when Jordan has helped to shoot down an Iranian missile dam drawn towards Israel. Even some American officials fear forcing Egypt and Jordan to accept new Palestinian refugees, if this is even possible, could seriously destabilize two reliable security partners.
“I think he will take, and I think other countries will also take,” said Trump one day before meeting Abdullah. “They have good hearts.”
The question for Abdullah, with Egyptian officials visiting Washington this week, is whether Trump’s maximum proposal for the enclave in difficulty is serious, or if it is simply a starting point for an alternating plan To bring peace and stability to the region.
Some Trump officials suggested the latter, even if they want to emphasize the fact that the president did not bluff when he discusses his daring idea.
“Come to the table with your plan if you don’t like your plan,” Trump’s national security advisor Mike Waltz said on Sunday when an appearance on NBC “Meet The Press” on Sunday, suggesting that The White House has received “all kinds of awareness” since Trump’s comments.
In his root, said that US officials said Trump’s suggestion should partly stimulate action on a question he considered to be dying, without any other nation offering reasonable solutions on how to rebuild an area which was erased by the Israeli bombing after October in Hamas after October in Hamas 7, 2023, terrorist attacks.
However, it is questionable that, in Trump’s mind, there is a distinction between the serious proposal and the negotiation tactics. Nothing he said in terms of Gaza in the week since he said it aloud, at a press conference alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, suggests that that’s all Except for a serious strategy, even if declarations of some of its senior officials have suggested the opposite.
In fact, in the days preceding the arrival of Abdullah, Trump did nothing to soften what has been for many in the region the most disturbing aspect of his proposal: that the Palestinians who leave Gaza in virtue of his plan would not be allowed to come back.
“No, they wouldn’t do it,” said Trump in an interview on Fox News when asked if the Palestinians would have the right to return to Gaza. “Because they will have much better housing. Much better – in other words, I’m talking about building a permanent place for them. »»
Trump based on Jordan and Egypt
So far, Trump seems to be determined to note this “permanent place” in Jordan and Egypt, even if the leaders of the two countries quickly rejected the plan last week.
Egypt, which is concerned about an influx of Palestinians destabilizing its Sinai region, said on Sunday that it would summon a summit of the Arab League “emergency” on February 28 in Cairo to discuss “new and dangerous developments” in the Palestinian question.
In Jordan, where a large part of the population is of Palestinian origin, the question has a particular resonance. The country absorbed successive waves of Palestinian refugees, from 1948 during the war which led to the creation of Israel.
In 1970, armed Palestinian factions tried to take control of the country of the father of King Abdullah, Hussein, a brief but violent conflict known as “Black September”. The memories of the incident have not disappeared more than 50 years later, in particular the current king of the country, because the country is struggling with a delicate demographic balance between its Palestinian and Jordanian populations.
At a time when popular dissatisfaction with the king develops, the question of how to proceed could become existential, both for Abdullah and for his geopolitics focused on the United States.
A destabilized Jordan would prove to be deeply problematic both for the United States and Israel. Already, certain opposition figures in Jordan have called on the kingdom to divert its attention from the United States and to China, Russia or the rich Arab states.
All this complicates Trump’s plan to move more than a million Palestinian refugees. However, so far, he has not recognized these difficulties, confident rather that he will be able to negotiate an achievable solution.
“I have the feeling that although they say no, I have the feeling that the king in Jordan and that the general – president – but that the general in Egypt will open their hearts and will give us the kind of land which we have Need to get it, “said Trump last week, referring in the latter case to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sissi, a former military officer.
Tuesday’s meeting will not be the first conversation between Trump and Abdullah to accept more Palestinian refugees.
“I said to him:” I would love you to take more because I watch the whole Gaza band right now, and it’s a mess “,” said Trump after talking by phone to Jordanian chef late last.
At the time, Trump had not publicly revealed his new plan to take a “long -term property” of the strip. Trump officials did not disseminate his plan with Jordanian or Egyptian officials before the president announced it from the eastern room.
And although Trump has discussed his idea with aid for several days, he was not written before he appeared in his remarks prepared alongside Netanyahu last Tuesday.
An Arab government official who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the case told CNN that he was still not clear if the United States has fully worked on the details of Trump’s plan. The official said that Arab officials will discuss the issue with the Trump administration and will offer ideas for the future of Gaza which would not imply to expel its Palestinian residents.
How it can be reconciled with Trump’s own idea is not clear.
