LEILA FADEL, HOST:
President Trump and Jordan's king, Abdullah, are meeting today at the White House.
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Jordan is one of the closest U.S. allies in the Middle East, but today's meeting is expected to be a little awkward, to say the least. Trump has floated pushing Palestinians from Gaza into Jordan and Egypt. That's a plan rejected by both countries and the Palestinians.
FADEL: To discuss what to expect today, NPR's Jane Arraf joins us from Jordan's capital, Amman. Hi, Jane.
JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: Hi, Leila.
FADEL: So what do you think the tone of this meeting will be after Trump has repeatedly said he wants the Palestinians out of Gaza and wants to own it?
ARRAF: Yeah, I would expect tense, and that's probably an understatement. It's hard to put a good face on this. That's because, as you noted, Jordan is a key ally. And without any consultation, according to Jordanians and White House officials, Trump floated that plan last week during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the U.S. to take over Gaza and forcibly push 2 million Palestinians to Egypt and Jordan. Monday night, Trump doubled down, threatening Jordan if it didn't accept the plan.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: If they don't agree, I would conceivably withhold aid, yeah.
ARRAF: So Jordan is a small country with a large number of refugees, and it relies on foreign aid. But this plan is one of those rare ones that has united citizens and the country's leaders in opposition to it.
FADEL: And what is the king likely to say?
ARRAF: Well, I spoke with Marwan Muasher, the former (ph) foreign minister of Jordan, now with the Carnegie Endowment think tank. He says this is going to be one of the toughest meetings the king has faced. Let's listen.
MARWAN MUASHER: The meeting is not going to be an easy one because there is no amount of pressure in my view that the United States can exert that Jordan can accede to. This is an existential issue to Jordan.
ARRAF: And by that, he means that creating an alternative Palestinian homeland here means that Jordan would essentially cease to exist as a country in many ways. The majority of its citizens are already descendants of Palestinian refugees. So this is something that Jordan doesn't believe it could or ever would agree to, no matter what the cost.
FADEL: Now, as you point out, Jordan has rejected this plan, but what has the government officially said so far?
ARRAF: The Jordanian foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, has quite clearly said that expulsion of Palestinians here would be a breach of its historic peace treaty with Israel and, therefore, seen as a declaration of war.
FADEL: Despite that, Trump keeps insisting Jordan and Egypt will succumb to U.S. pressure, and the U.S. has leverage in the form of aid. Does Jordan have leverage?
ARRAF: I asked Mausher, who's also a former senior official at the World Bank, about that. Here's what he said.
MUASHER: Jordan gets 1.5, $1.6 billion from the United States each year. Any loss of that assistance is going to produce economic difficulty for Jordan. This is not to say also that cutting off aid to Jordan is not that easy.
ARRAF: So he points out that Congress would be quite resistant to this because it's a friend. Many of congresspeople are friends of Jordan.
FADEL: If the U.S. cut aid, what other countries step up?
ARRAF: Well, there is one key friend, Saudi Arabia, and its rulers have made clear that they will not accept this plan. So in the end, that could be what stops it.
FADEL: NPR's Jane Arraf in Amman. Thank you.
ARRAF: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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