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 “susceptible to geopolitical blackmail”, specialists warned.
On January 25, Trump urged 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 may do it. They may do it… We do quite a bit for them, they usually’re gonna do it,” Trump informed a journalist.
A Trump energy play
“This … does arrange a significant confrontation,” mentioned Sean Yom, an affiliate professor of political science at Temple College.
“King Abdullah II has repeatedly mentioned the ‘various homeland’ state of affairs and additional Palestinian displacement is a purple line … however Jordan can also be immediately dependent upon US support and safety help – the dominion is susceptible to geopolitical blackmail,” Yom, who has written extensively on the Center East and North Africa, informed Al Jazeera.
Analysts agree that Trump might attempt 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 international locations and set the bottom for Jordan to obtain billions of {dollars} in US support as debt aid.
The US now provides Jordan $1.45bn a yr in bilateral overseas help, making it one of many prime recipients of overseas support, after Israel and Egypt.
On January 20, Trump signed an government order directing all federal authorities companies to enact a 90-day pause on nearly all overseas improvement help, throughout which period present programmes would even have disbursements paused as they’re reviewed.
Every week later, a waiver was accredited by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to proceed “life-saving humanitarian help” in the course of the 90-day evaluation interval.
The transfer sowed chaos amongst US-funded programmes and our bodies worldwide, additional compounded when Trump’s administration despatched blended indicators 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, mentioned a suspension of support would “have an effect on numerous forms of overseas help to the nation, together with finances assist, sector finances assist, improvement tasks and humanitarian help along with army support”.
For Yom, the freeze might 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 outdated allies like Jordan don’t have a lot say within the matter”, he mentioned.
Analysts imagine that if Trump leverages support, Jordan might 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”, mentioned Geoffrey Hughes, writer of the ebook Kinship, Islam and the Politics of Marriage in Jordan: Affection and Mercy.
“It can additionally immediately hit the safety equipment, and all of the tougher since a lot support is routed by way of the army and police now,” Hughes added.
Galvanised protests and discontent
The transfer might additionally exacerbate inner tensions in Jordan. Greater than a yr of protests from residents angered by Israel’s conflict on Gaza, which killed practically 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.
Massive protests broke out over Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Financial institution in 2023 and have 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 have been close to their peak, Jordan’s police mentioned they have been arresting rioters and vandals whereas permitting residents to precise themselves.
This left the Jordanian authorities in an more and more troublesome state of affairs, 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 probably be restored to the nation faster than in different places, interviewees informed 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 varied US wars and interventions, and regards this ‘oasis of moderation’ as not price destabilising in the long term,” Yom mentioned.
“Trump might want to stroll again this utterly unrealistic proposition,” Toukan mentioned. “If this was to change into official American coverage, it could undermine not solely Jordan’s stability however that of all the area, together with Egypt’s.”
