In July 2021, for the primary time, when King Abdullah II of Jordan met with President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., he was warmly welcomed as a dependable American accomplice whose nation is a safety line within the Center East.
“You reside in a tough neighborhood,” Mr. Biden said As they sat within the oval workplace.
The king, who will meet with President Trump on Tuesday, can discover Washington for the tougher neighborhood this time.
D -n Trump repeated his intention to expel the Palestinians from the Gaza Strip as a part of his US plan to “personal” the territory and on Monday He suggested He might take into account decreasing the assistance of Jordan and Egypt if their governments refused to take roughly 1.9 million Palestinians from Gaza.
Each Jordan and Egypt strongly rejected the concept when G -N -Trump first lifted it final week, inserting King Abdullah in attachment as he prepares to satisfy the president.
The repulsion of the calls for of the d -Trump can impede greater than $ 1.5 billion In overseas assist, which Jordan receives yearly from america. A separate, categorized stream of American cash is flowing to Jordan’s intelligence companies.
On the identical time, greater than half of the roughly 12 million objects of King Abdullah are of Palestinian origin, and consultants within the Center East say that the survival of his household administration will depend on him to dig towards the plan of G -N -Trump.
“King Abdulla can’t go together with this,” mentioned Paul Salem, Vice President for Worldwide Group on the Center East Institute in Washington. “He can’t survive the concept that he was confronted with the ethnic cleaning of the Palestinians.”
“That is existential to him and his authorities.”
King Abdullah can be anticipated to make use of his assembly with Mr. Trump to proceed towards all Israel’s makes an attempt to annex half or the complete West coast, for which the far-right members of the Israeli authorities converse brazenly and a few of the appointments of the M-Authorities H Trump appointed by Mr Trump have long been overlappingS The west coast sits straight on the border of Jordan and the Israeli transfer to take extra Palestinian land, can result in violence and pleasure that may spill in Jordan.
Jordan is now residence to roughly 700,000 refugees, most of them Syrians who’ve fled the civil conflict of this nation.
In contrast to a few of its neighbors from the Center East, who’re drowning in oil wealth, Jordan depends closely on American assist. King Abdulla is working exhausting to domesticate shut ties within the US authorities and is sensible to be the primary Arab chief to satisfy with each new president.
Jordan permits US troops entry to its army bases, and has acquired hundreds of thousands of {dollars} from the CIA for many years to assist his intelligence companies – secret funds that started in the course of the reign of the present father of the King, King Hussein.
US help to Jordan, together with army help, is at the moment frozen as a part of the Trump Administration’s suspension for overseas help. The USAID workplace within the nation is closed.
King Abdullah, who took over the throne in 1999, is the longest chief within the Center East. Bruce Ridel, a former Center East analyzer within the CIA, mentioned the King would in all probability use his robust relations with the Pentagon, CIA and Congress to attempt to advise the president that the US Gaza Act and the Palestinians are “dangerous Concept. “
The king met Sunday with Pete Heget, the Minister of Protection, and Mr. Ridel says that Jordan “has many supporters on the hill, together with many Republican supporters.”
Nonetheless, King Abdullah might have to seek out new patrons if G -N Trump decides to scale back Jordan’s funding due to his refusal to go together with his gasoline plan. If this occurs, he might discover keen donors within the governments of the wealthy Gulf nations reminiscent of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who additionally strongly opposed G -N -Trump’s plan for US gaza and expulsion of Palestinians from their Land.
Salem believes that the largest objective of G -n -Trump within the Center East continues to be an enormous deal that would come with Saudi Arabia, which formally acknowledges Israel, one thing that may be extraordinarily unlikely to agree if G -N Trump follows his plans for gasoline.
The Saudi Authorities mentioned there needs to be particular steps to an unbiased Palestinian state earlier than the dominion considers a normalized diplomatic relations with Israel
For that reason, King Abdullah might have a small lever. He might attempt to persuade a mercurial US president to carry a take a look at the largest award and persuade him that Jordan is important to assist him obtain it.
