The king of Jordan face a volume when he meets with Trump

In July 2021, the first time when King Abdullah II of Jordan met with President Joseph R. Biden Jr., he was met warmly as a reliable American partner whose land is a bulwark for security in the Middle East.

“You live in a tough neighborhood,” Mr. The bite as they sat in the oval office.

The king, who meets President Trump on Tuesday, can find Washington to be the harder neighborhood this time.

Mr. Trump has repeated his intention to expel Palestinians from the Gaza Strip as part of his plan for the United States to “own” the territory, and on Monday he suggested he could consider cutting help with Jordan and Egypt if their governments refused to take in an estimated 1.9 million Palestinians from Gaza.

Both Jordan and Egypt flatly rejected the idea when Mr. Trump first traveled it last week, putting King Abdullah in a bond as he prepares to meet with the president.

To reject Mr. Trump’s claims could imperil 1.5 billion dollars In foreign assistance that Jordan receives each year from the United States. A separate, classified stream of American money flows to Jordan’s intelligence services.

At the same time, more than half of King Abdullah’s is approx. 12 million issues of Palestinian descent, and experts in the Middle East say that the survival of his family’s rule depends on he digs against Mr. Trump’s plan.

“King Abdullah can’t join forces,” said Paul Salem, Vice President of International Engagement at the Middle East Institute in Washington. “He can’t survive the idea of ​​crashing about the ethnic purification of Palestinians.”

“It’s existential to him and his government.”

King Abdullah is also expected to use his encounter with Trump to push against any attempt from Israel to annex part or the entire West Bank, as right-wing members of the Israeli government are talking openly about, and some of Mr. Trump’s appointed has long long spoken. The West Bank sits directly on the border of Jordan, and an Israeli movement to take more Palestinian land can lead to violence and turmoil that could be wasted into Jordan.

Jordan is already home to approximately 700,000 refugees, most of them Syrians who fled the country’s civil war.

Unlike some of its Middle Eastern neighbors who are drowning in oil wealth, Jordan is highly dependent on American help. King Abdullah works hard to cultivate close ties throughout the US government and makes it a point to be the first Arab leader to meet with every new president.

Jordan gives us troops access to its military bases, and has for decades received millions of dollars from the CIA to support its intelligence services – secret payments that began under the government of the current king’s father, King Hussein.

American help with Jordan, including military aid, is currently frozen as part of the Trump administration’s blanket for foreign aid. The USAID office in the country is closed.

King Abdullah, who assumed the throne in 1999, is the longest currently serving leader in the Middle East. Bruce Riedel, a former top Middle East -Analyst at the CIA, said the king is likely to use his strong relationship with the Pentagon, the CIA and Congress to try to advise the president that an American takeover of the Gaza Strip and the expulsion of Palestinians is “a bad idea.”

The king met on Sunday with Pete Hegeth, the Defense Secretary, and Mr. Riedel says Jordan “has a lot of supporters on the hill, including a lot of Republican followers.”

Still, King Abdullah may find new patrons if Trump decides to cut down on funding for Jordan over its rejection of joining his plan for Gaza. If this happens, he may find willing donors in the governments of wealthy golf countries such as Saudi -Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who also strongly opposed Mr. Trump’s plan for an American takeover of Gaza and the expulsion of Palestinians from their country.

Mr. Salem believes that Mr. Trump’s biggest goal in the Middle East is still a magnificent deal that will involve Saudi Arabia, who officially recognizes Israel, something it would be extremely unlikely to accept whether Mr. Trump follows through on his plans for Gaza.

The Saudi government has said that there must be concrete steps towards an independent Palestinian state before the kingdom is considering normalizing diplomatic relations with Israel

For this reason, King Abdullah could have some leverage. He could try to convince a Mercury President to keep his eyes on the bigger prize and convince him that Jordan is important to help him reach it.