With US President Donald Trump pushing Jordan to permanently resettle Palestinians from Gaza, the Hashemite Kingdom once again faces a crisis that is nothing short of existential—this time at the behest of its largest ally, the United States. In his first weeks back in office, Trump sent shockwaves across the Middle East and beyond with his suggestion that Palestinians in Gaza should be resettled in Jordan and Egypt. Trump’s remarks were especially alarming in Jordan, where the regime has long made clear that any forced relocation of Palestinians to the kingdom or anywhere else was a red line not to be crossed under any circumstances.
Trump reportedly first broached the idea with Jordan’s King Abdullah II during a January 25 phone call, stating about the conversation, “I said to him I’d love you to take on more because I’m looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now and it’s a mess, it’s a real mess. I’d like him to take people.” He added that he also wanted Egypt to take in Palestinians from Gaza. Rather jarringly, the American president added that “you’re talking about a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing.” Trump has since proposed the idea several more times, claiming that Egypt and Jordan “will do it.”
The actual population of Gaza is closer to 2.3 million people, 90 percent of whom are already internally displaced and living in desperate circumstances after 15 months of Israeli bombardment, even as Trump appeared to advocate a mass expulsion. Trump’s shocking proposal is sure to be the king’s main topic of discussion during his February 11 visit to the White House.
Jordan Says No
Along with Egypt, Jordan immediately and emphatically rejected the proposal, with Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi describing Jordan’s position as longstanding and “firm and unwavering.” Jordan rejects the forced relocation of Palestinians as morally wrong and indefensible. But the kingdom also is in no condition to add hundreds of thousands of refugees under any circumstances, given its struggling economy and what many see as an already fragile demographic imbalance between those of Palestinian origin and East Bankers. An influx of Palestinian refugees would dramatically increase economic strains and could cause political instability.
For Jordanians, “resettlement” of Palestinians to Jordan would amount to ethnic cleansing, which they fear would begin in Gaza and possibly extend to forcing Palestinians out of the West Bank. The idea also uncomfortably adds to the fear of Jordan becoming a Watan Badil an “alternative homeland” for Palestinians, which is now being actively promoted not only by far-right Israeli politicians, but also by the kingdom’s largest and most powerful ally.
Jordanian officials swiftly condemned the “resettlement” scheme. Speaker of Parliament Ahmed Safadi affirmed his and the chamber’s rejection of any plan for Palestinian displacement, stating “no to displacement, no to an alternative homeland, Palestine belongs to the Palestinians, and Jordan belongs to the Jordanians.” Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi, speaking on behalf of the government of Prime Minister Jaafar Hasan, reaffirmed Jordan’s commitment to a two-state solution and to strong relations with the United States. Meeting at the headquarters of the Arab League on February 1, diplomats from Bahrain, the Palestinian Authority, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates backed the Jordanian and Egyptian stances, flatly rejecting any Palestinian resettlement scheme. On February 5, the King himself spoke out, condemning “any attempts to annex land and displace the Palestinians.”
The idea of “Resettlement” adds to the fear of Jordan becoming an “alternative homeland” for Palestinians.
Jordanian society, including members of opposition movements, also vehemently rejects Trump’s proposal. As one opposition activist told this author, “There is a unanimous refusal of this project from all: people and regime, political parties, groups and currents across all ideologies and leanings. This is the single issue that unifies all Jordanians, from all descents, political leanings, and even their positions within or outside the regime.” While the unanimity is clear, opposition voices have consistently criticized Jordan’s close ties to Western allies like the United States which they believe have made Jordan vulnerable to exactly this sort of American pressure.
Jordan is an aid-dependent country with a weak economy and a state that has been pummeled by multiple regional crises, from the Iraq war to the Syrian civil war to the Gaza war. Jordan’s location has made it home to multiple waves of refugees to the kingdom throughout Jordanian history—from Palestinians since 1948, to Iraqis fleeing the various Gulf wars, to Syrians after 2011. For instance, Jordan hosts more than 650,000 registered Syrian refugees, but government officials have argued that another 750,000 unregistered Syrian nationals are also in the country.
Many Jordanians trace their roots to earlier waves of Palestinian refugees, especially in the wake of the Arab-Israeli wars from 1948 onward. But millions of Jordanians also have roots firmly east of the River Jordan, and pride themselves on their deep family and tribal roots in the kingdom. For many Jordanians, this societal diversity—of Palestinians and East Jordanians, Muslims and Christians, and Arabs and Circassians—is precisely the mix that makes Jordan the country that it is today. At the same time, identity politics has long been the Achilles heel of Jordanian society and politics. Some Jordanians see diversity not as part of a broader and inclusive national community, but rather as the fissures and fault lines of identity politics running through the kingdom, rendering any attempt at demographic change politically dangerous.
Trump Doubles Down
Just days after Jordan’s government firmly rejected the idea of taking in Gazans, Trump repeated his earlier comments, setting off more alarm bells. When asked by reporters on January 30 about Jordan’s and Egypt’s firm “no,” Trump simply said, “They’re going to do it. We do a lot for them, and they’re going to do it.”
Israeli Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich, one of the most far-right members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet, welcomed Trump’s remarks, as they directly support the longstanding aim of many on the Israeli far right to depopulate Gaza of Palestinians and repopulate it with Israeli settlers. That is precisely the nightmare that many Jordanians, as well as the government, fear. Jordanian officials have for decades asserted that Jordan is Jordan, and Palestine is Palestine.
Smotrich and others—including Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a top White House advisor in the president’s first term—have casually spoken of Gaza as though it is simply highly valuable waterfront property, there to be developed by Americans and others and perhaps resettled if only Palestinians were not in the way. On February 5, Trump himself doubled down on the idea by proposing that the United States should take over Gaza and displace Palestinians there in order to transform the Strip into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” Jordanians reject such a cavalier view of the Palestinian people and their land, and see in these designs a dire threat to the lives and dreams of the Palestinian people—and to Jordan itself.
Challenging US-Jordan Relations…Again
As Jordan has consistently condemned Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Gaza, the kingdom has remained a close ally of the United States. While Jordanian-Israeli relations have been cold at best, the kingdom’s relations with the United States have usually been warm—the exception being during Trump’s first term in office. This time around, and within days of re-entering the White House, Trump clearly challenged the core understandings within the long-term and strategic American-Jordanian relationship.
Throughout the years, the diplomatic relationship remained cordial and significant cooperation in economic, political, and security affairs continued. In 2022, Jordan and the United States signed a Memorandum of Understanding that included a US pledge to provide $1.45 billion in annual aid over seven years to the Hashemite Kingdom. At least 3,000 US troops have operated in Jordan, with the kingdom serving as an important base for the global coalition against the so-called Islamic State. Jordan has a free trade agreement with the United States and enjoys special status as a “major non-NATO ally.” In July 2024, NATO opened its first Middle East liaison office in Amman. Jordan’s leaders see each of these elements as key to the country’s security. Yet these extensive US linkages also have many critics within Jordanian political circles, and therefore in some ways represent political liabilities on the domestic front.
Trump’s alarming proposal reminded many Jordanian officials of strained bilateral relations during the first Trump administration
During the recent Gaza war, Jordan’s protest movements mobilized to oppose the Israeli bombing and the devastating civilian death toll—some 47,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel as of late 2024. The Jordanian monarchy and government were also harshly critical of Israel’s actions. But opposition activists pressured the regime to do more—calling for ending a controversial gas deal with Israel, for abrogating the peace treaty with Israel and cutting off relations, for ousting US military personnel, and for preventing military supplies for Israel from transiting through Jordan.
In this context of severe regional crises and a mobilized domestic opposition, in September 2024 the kingdom held its latest round of parliamentary elections. Not surprisingly, the Gaza war and Jordanian policies toward both Israel and the United States were major issues in the campaign. While pro-regime centrist and conservative parties and candidates won most of the 138 elected seats, the kingdom’s largest Islamist party, the Islamic Action Front, secured 31 seats, giving the Islamist opposition a significant voice in parliament.
In recent months, more major regional developments have occurred, including the signing of a fragile ceasefire in Gaza and the sudden collapse of the Assad regime in Syria in the face of a final and successful assault by rebel forces. While Jordan welcomed what appeared to be the end (at least for now) of both nearby wars, the Hashemite regime also worried about Israeli intentions in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as the sudden rise of the Islamist Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham rebel group to power in Syria. It was amid these many domestic and regional pressures that the Trump administration tossed its latest verbal bombshell about resettling Gazans in Jordan.
Trump’s alarming proposal reminded many Jordanian officials of strained bilateral relations during the first Trump administration. During those years, Jordan’s leadership felt that the American president did not value Jordan as his predecessors had, and that the United States had marginalized and sidelined the kingdom as Trump aligned more closely with the interests of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
The first Trump administration cut US funding for UNRWA, the main aid agency supporting Palestinian refugees, including in Jordan, leaving the kingdom scrambling to assemble a coalition of donors to make up for the shortfall. The first Trump administration even seemed to float a longstanding failed idea that would see parts of the West Bank form a confederation with Jordan—something Amman has always rejected.
President Joe Biden initially restored UNRWA funding and, drawing upon his longtime close relationship with King Abdullah, restored Jordan’s prestigious place in US policy in the Middle East. Yet that did not help Jordan influence the Biden administration to pressure Israel to end the Gaza war. (In early 2024, the Biden administration itself froze funding to UNRWA.) Now, with Biden out and Trump back in, many of the Trump-era crises have returned or worsened, with Trump adding more to the list. In addition to his calls for forced relocation of Gazans, Trump announced a freeze on all foreign aid for at least 90 days, abruptly cutting off many USAID projects in Jordan for education, economic reform, small business growth, and biodiversity and conservation—as well as suspending security assistance. (Trump’s aid freeze has exempted military aid to Israel and Egypt, but not to Jordan.)
The United States and Jordan remain allies. But so far, the new White House team has shown little understanding of Jordan’s domestic and regional pressures. The kingdom appears to have few options other than attempting to change the mind of a famously mercurial US president in order to head off a dangerous initiative that could have devastating consequences for Jordan.
The views expressed in this publication are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Arab Center Washington DC, its staff, or its Board of Directors.
Featured image credit: Flickr/The White House
