King says Jordan opposes displacing Palestinians in Gaza following Trump meeting

President Donald Trump hosted Jordan’s King Abdullah II at the White House on Tuesday and renewed his insistence that Gaza could somehow be emptied of all residents, controlled by the US and redeveloped as a tourist area.

It is an audacious, but highly unlikely, scheme to dramatically remake the Middle East and would require Jordan and other Arab nations to accept more refugees from Gaza — something King Abdullah reiterated after their meeting that he opposes.

The pair met in the Oval Office, with secretary of state Marco Rubio also on-hand. The president suggested he would not withhold US aid to Jordan or Egypt if they do not agree to dramatically increase the number of people from Gaza they take in.

“I don’t have to threaten that. I do believe we’re above that,” Mr Trump said.

That contradicted the Republican president previously suggesting that holding back aid was a possibility.

King Abdullah was asked repeatedly about Mr Trump’s audacious plan to remake the Middle East, but did not make substantive comments on it nor the idea that his country could accept large numbers of new refugees from Gaza.

He did say, however, that Jordan would be willing “right away” to take as many as 2,000 children in Gaza who are suffering from cancer or otherwise ill.

“I finally see somebody that can take us across the finish line to bring stability, peace and prosperity to all of us in the region,” the king said of Mr Trump in his statement at the top of the meeting.

The king left the White House after about two hours and was headed to Capitol Hill to meet a bipartisan group of politicians. He posted on X that during his meeting with Mr Trump, “I reiterated Jordan’s steadfast position against the displacement of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank”.

“This is the unified Arab position. Rebuilding Gaza without displacing the Palestinians and addressing the dire humanitarian situation should be the priority for all,” he wrote.

That was despite Mr Trump using his appearance with Abdullah to repeat suggestions that the US could come to control Gaza.

Mr Trump also said on Tuesday that it would not require committing American funds but that the US overseeing the war-torn region would be possible, “under the US authority”, without elaborating what that actually was.

“We’re not going to buy anything. We’re going to have it,” Mr Trump said of US control in Gaza. He suggested that the redeveloped area could have new hotels, office buildings and houses, “and we’ll make it exciting”.

“I can tell you about real estate. They’re going to be in love with it,” Mr Trump, who built a New York real estate empire that catapulted him to fame, said of Gaza’s residents, while also insisting that he personally would not be involved in development.

Mr Trump has previously suggested that Gaza’s residents could be displaced temporarily or permanently, an idea that leaders around the Arab world have sharply rebuked.

Additionally, Mr Trump used the meeting to renew his suggestions that a tenuous ceasefire between Hamas and Israel could be cancelled if Hamas does not release all of the remaining hostages it is holding by noon on Saturday.

“I don’t think they’re going to make the deadline, personally,” Mr Trump said of Hamas. “They want to play tough guy. We’ll see how tough they are.”

The king’s visit is happening at a perilous moment for the ongoing ceasefire in Gaza. Hamas is accusing Israel of violating the truce and said it is pausing future releases of hostages captured in its attack on October 7 2023.

Mr Trump has repeatedly proposed the US take control of Gaza and turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East”, with Palestinians in the war-torn territory pushed into neighbouring nations with no right of return.

His comments on Tuesday contradicted his Monday suggestions that, if necessary, he would withhold US funding from Jordan and Egypt — longtime US allies and among the top recipients of its foreign aid — as a means of persuading them to accept additional Palestinians from Gaza.

Jordan is home to more than two million Palestinians and, along with other Arab states, has flatly rejected Mr Trump’s plan to relocate civilians from Gaza. Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, said last week that his country’s opposition to Mr Trump’s idea was “firm and unwavering”.

Besides concerns about jeopardising the long-held goals of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Egypt and Jordan have privately raised security concerns about welcoming large numbers of additional refugees into their countries even temporarily.

Mr Trump announced his ideas for resettling Palestinians from Gaza and taking ownership of the territory for the US during a press conference last week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.