Experts warned that US President Donald Trump has made contradictory remarks about the escalating tensions with the Hashemite Kingdom, shifting Palestinians to Jordan and Egypt, and potentially making King Abdullah II “vulnerable to geopolitical blackmail”.
Trump made the suggestion on January 25 that Jordan and Egypt should evict Gaza’s roughly two million Palestinians, sprinkling rumors that the United States is plotting ethnic cleansing there.
Jordan and Egypt’s leaders both rejected the proposal. Trump, however, reiterated his suggestion on Thursday during a photo op in the Oval Office, giving a hint about how much influence he feels.
“They will do it. They will do it… We do a lot for them, and they’re gonna do it”, Trump told a journalist.
A Trump power play
“This … does set up a major confrontation”, said Sean Yom, an associate professor of political science at Temple University.
Jordan is directly reliant on US assistance and security assistance, according to Yom, who has written extensively on the Middle East and North Africa, but King Abdullah II has stated on numerous occasions that the situation and further Palestinian displacement represent a red line.
Using this reliance on US aid, Trump may try to coerce Jordan into accepting Palestinians.
The signing of the Wadi Araba Treaty between Israel and Jordan in 1994 opened up diplomatic, trade, and diplomatic relations, and it opened the door for Jordan to receive billions of dollars in US debt relief.
Jordan is currently receiving $ 1.45 billion in bilateral foreign aid, making it the second-highest recipient of foreign aid after Israel and Egypt.
On January 20, Trump signed an executive order mandating a 90-day suspension of almost all foreign aid, with the remainder being reviewed after being reviewed.
A week later, a waiver was approved by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to continue “life-saving humanitarian assistance” during the 90-day review period.
The situation was further exacerbated by the administration’s lack of consistency in deciding whether or not the order would come into effect and how.
A suspension of aid, according to Dima Toukan, a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute, would “affect various types of foreign assistance to the country, including budget support, sector budget support, development projects, and humanitarian assistance in addition to military aid.”
For Yom, the freeze could be seen “as a power play by the new administration”.
Trump’s statement indicates that “any post-Gaza regional order must abide by American rules” and that “old allies like Jordan don’t have much influence.”
According to analysts, Jordan might have to rethink its alliances and turn to Arab Gulf nations, Russia, China, or the European Union to fill funding gaps if Trump uses aid.
It could also “]force] them to … implement deeply unpopular austerity measures that predictably lead to protests”, said Geoffrey Hughes, author of the book Kinship, Islam and the Politics of Marriage in Jordan: Affection and Mercy.
“It will also directly hit the security apparatus,” Hughes continued, adding that “it will be even more difficult to do so now that so much aid is now being routed through the military and police.”
Galvanised protests and discontent
The action may also cause Jordan’s internal strife. More than a year of protests from citizens angered by Israel’s war on Gaza, which killed nearly 62, 000 Palestinians, has put a spotlight on Jordan’s reliance on the US and Israel.
Much of Jordan’s population, which includes many Palestinians with Jordanian nationality and more than two million Palestinian refugees, was frustrated with the government’s unwillingness to cut ties.
In 2023, significant protests broke out in Gaza and the West Bank, and they lasted for a long period of time until 2024.
The government of Jordan intervened by cracking down on and arresting political opponents and protesters.
Jordan’s police claimed they were detaining rioters and vandals while allowing people to express themselves in April 2024, when the demonstrations were at their height.
The Jordanian government was left with little room to maneuver either domestically or internationally because of this.
In last September’s parliamentary elections, the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Islamic Action Front (IAF) made significant gains, going from seven to 31 parliament seats out of a total of 138. Some analysts saw the gains of the IAF as a sign of monarchy dissatisfaction.
Jordan’s importance to US regional interests should result in a quicker return of foreign aid, according to interviewees, according to Al Jazeera.
The old-school, bipartisan consensus wing in Washington, which sees the Hashemites as essential to US foreign policy in the region, recalls Jordan’s decades of support for various US wars and interventions, and views this “oasis of moderation” as unwise in the long run, Yom said.
Source: Aljazeera
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