Trump’s plan to ‘clean out’ Gaza could upend Jordan

Jesse Marks

Foreign Policy  /  February 4, 2025

The country’s role as a regional stabilizer [sic] is at risk if it takes on more Palestinian refugees.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s statement that he wants to “clean out” Gaza raised alarm in many quarters, but perhaps nowhere more so than in Jordan. On a January 25 call, Trump pressured Jordanian King Abdullah II to take in many more Palestinian refugees in what would amount to a de facto ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

For Jordan, this is not a new proposal, but it comes at a time of great uncertainty in the Middle East, with the potential to expose and heighten internal tensions in Jordan. What Trump may not realize is how detrimental destabilizing Jordan could be for U.S. interests.

The extent to which Trump will pursue forcing Palestinians out of Gaza remains unclear, but Jordan is taking the threat very seriously. Taking in Palestinian refugees has long been a major red line for the kingdom. Rather than a concrete objective, Trump’s statement may serve as an opening negotiating tactic for a broader U.S. Middle East peace plan.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi underscored in response that Jordan’s position on receiving Palestinian refugees would not change: “Jordan is for Jordanians, and Palestine is for Palestinians.” This message applies to Trump’s request for Gaza, but also potentially to displaced Palestinians in the West Bank who might be forced into Jordan as Israel escalates its attacks and raids in the occupied territory.

Abdullah set a clear red line for Israel and the United States after October 7, 2023: “No refugees in Jordan, no refugees in Egypt.” While Jordan’s leadership relied on the Biden administration to oppose Israeli proposals to forcibly displace Palestinians from Gaza, a second Trump administration may adopt a more permissive stance toward Israel’s ambitions. Already, Trump’s proposal has received praise from several of Israel’s most prominent far-right politicians, former National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who have reiterated their calls for the Israeli government to swiftly implement a population transfer from Gaza to neighbouring countries—an agenda they have long championed.

Trump’s rhetoric on forced expulsion further emboldens Israel’s far-right ministers, increasing pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to pursue more extreme policies. This escalation risks pushing Jordan and Israel onto a collision course, as Jordan will likely reject Israeli pressure to implement any policies that threaten its own stability.

Jordan’s red line is grounded in a stark reality: For Palestinians, displacement is rarely temporary, and for Jordan, its implications have been deeply destabilizing. Since the 1948 war that led to the creation of Israel and forced mass Palestinian displacement, Jordan has absorbed waves of Palestinian refugees. But each wave has effectively meant permanent exile. Palestinians are rarely allowed to return to their ancestral land and so remain in Jordan indefinitely.

While Jordan does not officially distinguish between citizens of Jordanian descent and citizens of Palestinian descent in government records, an estimated 55 percent to 70 percent of the population identifies as Palestinian by origin or nationality. The population has grown from as many as 750,000 displaced in 1948 to an estimated 5 million to 7 million. This includes at least 2.4 million Palestinian refugees in Jordan registered with the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA, many of whom are second generation and hold Jordanian citizenship.

Protracted displacement has caused complex political and social challenges for decades, affecting population growth and national stability.

This delicate balance has been a defining feature of Jordan’s identity since 1948. Most notably, during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Israel’s seizure of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians—including the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)—into Jordan. The massive displacement profoundly affected Jordan’s demographic and political landscape, strained its resources, and destabilized its fragile social equilibrium.

This set the stage for 1970, when tensions between Jordan’s leaders and the PLO culminated in Black September: a brief but violent civil war between Jordanian forces and Palestinian factions. These experiences have made the preservation of demographic balance between Palestinians and native Jordanians a core national security priority for the kingdom.

Trump’s proposal risks repeating this history. Forcibly displacing Palestinians from Gaza into Jordan threatens not only to destabilize the kingdom but also to bring Hamas into Jordan—a scenario reminiscent of 1970.

Any position the king takes—or is seen to take—on the Palestinian issue risks triggering public unrest and protests given Hamas’s surge in popularity across Jordan following the October 7, 2023, attack. Public sentiment in Jordan remains highly sensitive to developments in Gaza, and any indication of acquiescence to external pressure could provoke significant backlash from citizens, especially from the Palestinian community. For Jordan, navigating these pressures is not just a matter of politics—it is essential to the kingdom’s survival.

Trump’s recent call for Jordan to take in more refugees would not be the first time he has sought to impose his policies on Jordan, nor would it be the first time Jordan has pushed back. After recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in late 2017, Trump moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem despite Jordan’s strong opposition. Jordan notably rejected Trump’s first-term “deal of the century” and its support for Israeli annexation of the occupied Jordan Valley in the West Bank over concerns that it would destabilize the kingdom. In response, Trump sidelined Jordan’s stability concerns in his broader vision for Middle East peace and, instead, engaged with the wealthier Gulf states.

If Trump feels snubbed by Jordan because the king is unwilling to risk the stability of the kingdom to ethnically cleanse Gaza, Trump could respond with vindictive measures. Trump has shown, as with Colombia, that he is unafraid to adopt a Godfather approach to diplomacy—leveraging tariffs, aid, and other coercive measures to compel compliance.

In 2020, Trump came alarmingly close to pulling critical U.S. aid packages that Jordan depends on for economic and political stability after Abdullah refused a White House request to extradite a convicted terrorist to the U.S. for her role in a 2001 Jerusalem suicide bombing, which killed U.S. citizens. If the past is prologue, this time around the consequences could be more severe.

Pushing Jordan toward collapse by stoking discontent among its citizens and threatening its leadership would have profoundly negative consequences for the region. Jordan’s fragility became apparent in 2021, when a coup attempt against Abdullah sent shockwaves through global capitals. The rare insurrection caught the international community off guard and prompted swift expressions of support from world leaders, including the United States and Russia. The lesson was important: Jordan’s stability is not guaranteed, and its role as a regional anchor cannot be taken for granted.

In this increasingly volatile region, Jordan is the last stable country in the Levant. The regional landscape has shifted dramatically, introducing new and pressing uncertainties for U.S. policymakers. As Palestinians in Gaza slowly return to their demolished cities following the cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas, Jordan remains one of the few regional actors capable of directly delivering humanitarian aid.

Meanwhile, escalating Israeli operations in the West Bank have heightened tensions, placing significant pressure on Jordan to mediate and prevent potential spillover effects. In Lebanon, a tenuous cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah persists, yet Israeli-Lebanese tensions remain dangerously high, threatening the possibility of renewed conflict. Jordan’s neighbour Syria, following the overthrow of dictator Bashar al-Assad, is at a critical crossroads, and Jordan is again one of the few countries able to both deliver aid and begin supporting Syria’s gradual reconstruction.

Jordan plays an indispensable role in maintaining regional stability and delivering strategic benefits that U.S. policymakers have come to rely on. As a host to millions of refugees already—including Palestinians, Syrians, and Iraqis—Jordan acts as a critical buffer against large-scale humanitarian crises. It is also a leading U.S. defense partner that supports U.S.-led regional counterterrorism operations and hosts thousands of U.S. military personnel. It leads the front-line war on the regional Captagon trade originating from Syria and, furthermore, Jordanian authorities collaborate closely with their Israeli counterparts to ensure a predictable level of security along their shared border, a key factor in preventing broader regional escalations.

If the Trump administration pushes Jordan to participate in the forced transfer of Palestinian refugees from Gaza, it would have catastrophic implications for U.S. interests in the Middle East. First and foremost, the U.S. government could lose its ability to use Jordan as a hub for its humanitarian and defense operations across the region if the king faces a choice between his rule or preserving a U.S. footprint.

The U.S. presence in Jordan relies on strong ties with the Hashemite monarchy, but an overthrow or coup, or even the risk of one, could force Jordan’s leadership to withdraw consent for the U.S. presence. It would also pose a direct threat to Israel’s security if Jordanian authorities were unable—or unwilling—to maintain security cooperation with Israeli forces. Popular pressure on Jordan’s leaders to end all ties with Israel could make continuing such security cooperation tricky.

This would expose Israel’s longest border to potential security challenges, including attacks on Israel originating from Jordan, weapons smuggling, and other forms of trafficking. This scenario would likely compel the United States to dramatically expand its security footprint in the region to deter further attacks on Israel, diverting resources and attention from other global priorities. Such instability could also create fertile ground for extremist recruitment among disenfranchised populations, further threatening regional and global security.

The Trump administration cannot afford to miscalculate now, especially given that many Middle East policymakers are not yet in their appointed positions. Just two weeks into his second term, Trump and Steve Witkoff, his Middle East envoy, are unveiling major policy decisions across the region without the experts, leadership, and bureaucratic architecture in place to coordinate, evaluate, and implement their agenda. A crisis in the region would leave the White House exposed at a time when it is ill-equipped to manage cascading instability.

Looking ahead, the Trump administration should prioritize maintaining a stable and resilient Jordan as a critical partner in navigating the region’s complex political dynamics. This means ensuring that U.S. aid continues to stabilize Jordan’s economy, sustain essential services for the millions of refugees it hosts, and support the kingdom’s internal cohesion.

Securing the cease-fire in Gaza and ensuring that Palestinians are not forcibly displaced to neighbouring countries, including Jordan and Egypt, is an essential first step.

Jesse Marks is the senior advocate for the Middle East at Refugees International; he previously served in the U.S. government as a Middle East policy advisor