US President Donald Trump’s feedback on ethnically cleaning Palestinians from Gaza and forcing them into Egypt and Jordan may result in a radical reshaping of regional alliances, analysts inform Al Jazeera.
Trump repeated his intentions after assembly with King Abdullah II on Tuesday. He had beforehand indicated that he would use US help to each nations as leverage to attempt to drive them to go together with his thought.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II appeared to aim to placate Trump by flattering him and making a pledge to just accept 2,000 sick kids from Gaza into Jordan.
“I lastly see any individual that may take us throughout the end line to convey stability, peace and prosperity to all of us within the area,” the Hashemite monarch instructed Trump. Trump known as the road “music to my ears”.
Cairo and Amman have each fervently rejected Trump’s feedback on quite a few events and Egypt will host an emergency Arab Summit on February 27 to type an Arab-led plan to counter Trump’s broadly sketched plan.
Billions in help
Each Egypt and Jordan have relied closely on US overseas help for many years.
Egypt has acquired greater than $87bn in US overseas help since 1946, although navy and financial help elevated considerably after Egypt signed a peace settlement with Israel in 1979.
The present $1.4bn in annual navy help that the US provides Egypt began in 1979 after the Camp David Accords have been signed between Egypt and Israel.
At present, Egypt is among the highest recipients of US overseas help within the Center East after Israel.
US overseas help additionally performs a major position in Jordan.
Israel and Jordan signed the Wadi Araba Treaty in 1994, establishing diplomatic, tourism and commerce relations between the 2 nations that laid the groundwork for Jordan to obtain billions of {dollars} in US help as debt reduction.
The US now provides Jordan $1.45bn a yr in bilateral overseas help.
Jordan is reeling from cuts of $770m in financial help from USAID, which helped fund some Jordanian ministries, like Schooling and Public Works, and supported the nation’s water safety.
This funding is a serious a part of making Egypt and Jordan’s economies operate, nevertheless it additionally helps the US’s regional agenda.
Jordan “has lengthy served as a pro-West companion and continues to play a stabilising position, buffering Israel from Iran and its proxies, internet hosting refugees, combatting terrorism and extremism and serving as a robust and dependable ally to Western powers,” Dima Toukan, a non-resident scholar on the Center East Institute, instructed Al Jazeera.
Egypt gives the US facilitations within the area, “together with the motion of US navy belongings throughout the area via preferential passage of the Suez Canal and overflights of Egypt’s territory”, based on an Egyptian government-sponsored article in Overseas Coverage.
All US navy help funds Egypt’s buy of weapons techniques from US defence contractors, based on a congressional report, making navy help to Egypt an oblique type of subsidy for US defence contractors.
“As a important lever of sentimental energy, help permits the US a major margin to train affect, handle its picture and domesticate frequent curiosity,” Toukan stated.
Massive gap within the funds
The prospect of Trump forcing via his plans to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza evokes stability issues in Egypt, based on analysts.
For Jordan, these fears are “existential” the analysts stated. A lot of Jordan’s inhabitants is already of Palestinian origin and for Jordan to absorb one other million would deeply have an effect on demographics and questions of nationwide id for a lot of within the nation.
To keep away from being compelled into it, Egypt and Jordan would possibly begin to look elsewhere for funding, like their allies within the Gulf and even US rivals for world affect – like Russia and China.
“If the US insists on withdrawing help, different teams and nations will definitely need to fill this hole,” Toukan instructed Al Jazeera.
China’s affect in Egypt has grown within the final decade and 2025 has been known as the “12 months of Egyptian-Chinese language Partnership” by the 2 states.
GCC states – who oppose Trump’s ethnic cleaning suggestion and who take pleasure in shut relations with Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Egypt’s President Abdelfattah el-Sisi – might also resolve that filling within the funding gaps is of their pursuits.
However even when that have been the case, it’s unlikely the billion-dollar gap of their coffers might be totally lined, probably forcing them to “implement deeply unpopular austerity measures that predictably result in protests,” Geoffrey Hughes, writer of the ebook, Kinship, Islam and the Politics of Marriage in Jordan: Affection and Mercy, instructed Al Jazeera.
“It’ll additionally straight hit the safety equipment and all of the more durable since a lot help is routed via the navy and police now.”
