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(AP) — President Donald Trump hosted Jordan’s King Abdullah II at the White House on Tuesday and renewed his suggestions that Gaza could be emptied of residents, controlled by the U.S. and redeveloped as a tourist area — a plan that could likely only work if the Arab nation agrees to accept more refugees.
The pair met in the Oval Office, where Trump suggested he wouldn’t withhold U.S. aid to Jordan or countries like Egypt, other Arab nations, if they don’t agree to dramatically increase the number of people from Gaza they take in.
“I don’t have to threaten that. I do believe we’re above that,” Trump said. That contradicted the Republican president previously suggesting that holding back aid was a possibility.
Abdullah was asked repeatedly about Trump’s audacious plan to remake the Middle East, but didn’t make substantive comments on it nor the idea that his country could accept large numbers of new refugees from Gaza.
Trump also repeated suggestions that the U.S. could come to control Gaza, but he said that it wouldn’t require committing funds and would come to fruition. He also said that would be possible, “Under the U.S. authority,” without elaborating what that actually was.
“We’re not going to buy anything. We’re going to have it,” Trump said of U.S. control in Gaza. He suggested that the redeveloped area could have new hotels, office buildings and houses and “and we’ll make it exciting.”
“I can tell you about real estate. They’re going to be in love with it,” Trump, who built a New York real estate empire that catapulted him to fame, said of Gaza’s residents, while also insisting that he personally would not be involved in development.
Additionally, Trump used the meeting to renew his suggestions that a tenuous ceasefire between Hamas and Israel could be canceled if Hamas doesn’t release all of the remaining hostages it is holding by midday on Saturday.
“I don’t think they’re going to make the deadline, personally,” Trump said of Hamas. “They want to play tough guy. We’ll see how tough they are.”
