US President Donald Trump has doubled down on feedback about displacing Palestinians in Gaza to Jordan and Egypt, escalating tensions with the Hashemite Kingdom and presumably leaving King Abdullah II “weak to geopolitical blackmail”, consultants warned.
On January 25, Trump advised that Jordan and Egypt ought to take within the two million or so Palestinians in Gaza, which sparked fears that the USA is angling for the ethnic cleaning of Gaza.
Jordan and Egypt’s leaders each rejected the proposal. However Trump repeated his concept on Thursday throughout a photograph op within the Oval Workplace, hinting on the leverage he feels he has.
“They are going to do it. They are going to do it… We do loads for them, and so they’re gonna do it,” Trump instructed a journalist.
A Trump energy play
“This … does arrange a significant confrontation,” stated Sean Yom, an affiliate professor of political science at Temple College.
“King Abdullah II has repeatedly stated the ‘different homeland’ situation and additional Palestinian displacement is a crimson line … however Jordan can also be straight dependent upon US support and safety help – the dominion is weak to geopolitical blackmail,” Yom, who has written extensively on the Center East and North Africa, instructed Al Jazeera.
Analysts agree that Trump might try to coerce Jordan into accepting Palestinians, utilizing this reliance on US support.
In 1994, Israel and Jordan signed the Wadi Araba Treaty, which established diplomatic, tourism and commerce relations between the 2 nations and set the bottom for Jordan to obtain billions of {dollars} in US support as debt aid.
The US now offers Jordan $1.45bn a yr in bilateral overseas help, making it one of many high recipients of overseas support, after Israel and Egypt.
On January 20, Trump signed an govt order directing all federal authorities businesses to enact a 90-day pause on nearly all overseas growth help, throughout which period current programmes would even have disbursements paused as they’re reviewed.
Per week later, a waiver was accepted by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to proceed “life-saving humanitarian help” throughout the 90-day evaluate interval.
The transfer sowed chaos amongst US-funded programmes and our bodies worldwide, additional compounded when Trump’s administration sent mixed signals over whether or not or not the order would go into impact, and the way.
Dima Toukan, a non-resident scholar on the Center East Institute, stated a suspension of support would “have an effect on numerous sorts of overseas help to the nation, together with funds help, sector funds help, growth initiatives and humanitarian help along with army support”.
For Yom, the freeze may very well be seen “as an influence play by the brand new administration”.
Trump is signalling that “any post-Gaza regional order should abide by American guidelines … and that previous allies like Jordan don’t have a lot say within the matter”, he stated.
Analysts imagine that if Trump leverages support, Jordan may very well be compelled to rethink its alliances and look to Arab Gulf states, Russia, China, or the European Union to fill funding gaps.
It might additionally “[force] them to … implement deeply unpopular austerity measures that predictably result in protests”, stated Geoffrey Hughes, writer of the ebook Kinship, Islam and the Politics of Marriage in Jordan: Affection and Mercy.
“It’ll additionally straight hit the safety equipment, and all of the tougher since a lot support is routed by the army and police now,” Hughes added.
Galvanised protests and discontent
The transfer might additionally exacerbate inside tensions in Jordan. Greater than a yr of protests from residents angered by Israel’s battle on Gaza, which killed almost 62,000 Palestinians, has put a highlight on Jordan’s reliance on the US and Israel.
A lot of Jordan’s inhabitants, which incorporates many Palestinians with Jordanian nationality and greater than two million Palestinian refugees, was annoyed with the federal government’s unwillingness to chop ties.
Giant protests broke out over Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Financial institution in 2023 and had been sustained for lengthy stretches of 2024.
The Jordanian authorities responded by cracking down on and arresting lots of of protesters and political opponents.
In April 2024, when the demonstrations had been close to their peak, Jordan’s police stated they had been arresting rioters and vandals whereas permitting residents to specific themselves.
This left the Jordanian authorities in an more and more tough scenario, with little room to manoeuvre internationally or domestically.
In final September’s parliamentary elections, the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Islamic Motion Entrance (IAF) made important positive aspects, going from seven to 31 parliament seats out of a complete of 138. Some analysts took IAF’s positive aspects to be an expression of discontent with the monarchy.
Jordan’s significance to US regional pursuits ought to imply overseas support will likely be restored to the nation faster than elsewhere, interviewees instructed Al Jazeera.
“What would possibly assist Jordan is the old-school, and bipartisan, consensus wing in Washington that sees the Hashemites as indispensable to US overseas coverage within the area, remembers the assistance that Jordan has given for many years to numerous US wars and interventions, and regards this ‘oasis of moderation’ as not value destabilising in the long term,” Yom stated.
“Trump might want to stroll again this utterly unrealistic proposition,” Toukan stated. “If this was to grow to be official American coverage, it might undermine not solely Jordan’s stability however that of the whole area, together with Egypt’s.”
