Donald Trump forcing Gustavo Petro, Colombia's far-left leader, to back down in the face of the threat of sky-high tariffs was a welcome change after four years of Joe Biden's geriatric passivity. But Trump's broader threat of indiscriminate tariffs – including against Canada and Mexico – will have dire foreign policy consequences. Close allies will distance themselves and trading partners will flee to other markets.
 Petro submitted to Trump. |
Consider recent Trump's threats against Egypt and Jordan. Here's the chronology:
- January 26, 2025: Trump endorsed the idea of Gazans leaving Gaza: "You're talking about a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing. I'd rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing at a different location where they can maybe live in peace for a change."
- January 28, 2025: Trump specified Egypt and Jordan as countries of destination for Gazans.
- January 30, 2025: Trump responded to a reporter's question whether he planned to invoke tariffs with, "They will do it... We do a lot for them, and they're gonna do it."
These off-the-cuff remarks have clear implications. First, and contrary to Israeli discussions of Gazans leaving voluntarily, Trump views their exodus as compulsory. Second, he plans to impose economic penalties unless the two governments agree to take in Gazans. These could include tariffs, cutting off aid, ending military sales, sanctions, boycotts, and more.
Trump's comments prompted furor. Foreign ministers from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, as well as officials from the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League rejected the transfer of Palestinians from Gaza "under any circumstances or justifications." They rejected any "infringement of the inalienable rights" of Palestinians, whether by "settlement, expulsion, home demolitions, annexation, depopulation of the land of its people through displacement, encouraged transfer or the uprooting of Palestinians from their land."
 Some of those foreign ministers in meeting. |
Without naming Trump, they warned that plans such as his "threaten the region's stability, risk expanding the conflict, and undermine prospects for peace and coexistence among its peoples." For good measure, Egypt's President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi added, that "the displacement of Palestinians ... can never be tolerated or allowed because of its impact on Egyptian national security." Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi on his own echoed these sentiments: "Our refusal of displacement is a steadfast position that will not change. Jordan is for Jordanians, and Palestine is for Palestinians."
Hamas, of course, denounced these ideas as "disconnected from reality" and "rejected in their entirety" but individual Gazan reactions might well be more positive, given their long experience of oppression in Gaza and the territory's current devastation. Still, even disregarding bias in coverage, the forcible emigration to a foreign country can only have limited appeal.
It is one thing to threaten flower-exporting Colombia with tariffs to accept deportees two weeks before Valentine's Day. It is another to induce Egypt or Jordan to accept the mass influx of Gazans. Their governments will fight Trump to the end. Note what Sisi said about the "impact on Egyptian national security"; in coded language, he states that bending to Trump could lead to his own demise. The last thing an already shaky strongman needs is a new, radicalized population. The same applies to Jordan, which suffered for decades from Palestinian extremism. Small Gaza is problem enough; just imagine it spreading to two large countries.
 When Palestinians ran wild in Jordan in 1970, it resembled Gaza in 2025. |
If push comes to shove, Egypt and Jordan will replace U.S. government funding with support from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. They will win close to unanimous diplomatic support. They will turn away from the United States and toward China.
Woe to the country whose leader makes foreign policy spontaneously, without a careful consideration of factors. Promiscuously threatening one and all with economic damage will undercut America's position in the world. Americans and their allies will lose badly if Trump persists in threatening tariffs as the mainstay of U.S. foreign policy.
Mr. Pipes (DanielPipes.org, @DanielPipes) is president of the Middle East Forum and author of the recently-published Israel Victory: How Zionists Win Acceptance and Palestinians Get Liberated (Wicked Son). © 2025 by Daniel Pipes. All rights reserved.
Feb. 4, 2025 update: (1) Trump made a number of statements concerning Gaza in his press conference with Benjamin Netanyahu that astonished everyone.
I also strongly believe that the Gaza Strip, which has been a symbol of death and destruction for so many decades and so bad for the people anywhere near it, and especially those who live there and frankly who's been really very unlucky. It's been very unlucky. It's been an unlucky place for a long time.
Being in its presence just has not been good and it should not go through a process of rebuilding and occupation by the same people that have really stood there and fought for it and lived there and died there and lived a miserable existence there. Instead, we should go to other countries of interest with humanitarian hearts, and there are many of them that want to do this and build various domains that will ultimately be occupied by the million Palestinians living in Gaza, ending the death and destruction and frankly bad luck.
This can be paid for by neighboring countries of great wealth. It could be one, two, three, four, five, seven, eight, twelve. It could be numerous sites, or it could be one large site. But the people will be able to live in comfort and peace and we'll get - we'll make sure something really spectacular is done.
They're going to have peace; they're not going to be shot at and killed and destroyed like this civilization of wonderful people has had to endure. The only reason the Palestinians want to go back to Gaza is they have no alternative. It's right now a demolition site. This is just a demolition site. Virtually every building is down.
They're living under fallen concrete that's very dangerous and very precarious. They instead can occupy all of a beautiful area with homes and safety and they can live out their lives in peace and harmony instead of having to go back and do it again. The US will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too.
We'll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out. Create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area. Do a real job, do something different.
Just can't go back. If you go back, it's going to end up the same way it has for years. I'm hopeful that this ceasefire could be the beginning of a larger and more enduring peace that will end the bloodshed and killing once and for all. ...
I do see a long-term ownership position and I see it bringing great stability to that part of the Middle East, and maybe the entire Middle East. And everybody I've spoken to - this was not a decision made lightly. Everybody I've spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs with something that will be magnificent in a really magnificent area that nobody would know.
Nobody can look because all they see is death and destruction and rubble and demolished buildings falling all over. It's just a terrible, terrible sight. I've studied it - I've studied this very closely over a lot of months, and I've seen it from every different angle. And it's a very, very dangerous place to be and it's only going to get worse. And I think this is an idea that's gotten tremendous - and I'm talking about from the highest level of leadership, gotten tremendous praise. ...
By doing what I'm recommending that we do, it's a very strong recommendation, but it is a strong recommendation. By doing that we think we're going to bring perhaps great peace to long beyond this area. And I have to stress, this is not for Israel, this is for everybody in the Middle East - Arabs, Muslims -- this is for everybody.
This would be where they can partake in terms of jobs and living and all of the other benefits. And I think it's very important. It just doesn't work the other way. You can't keep trying. They just - has been going along for so many decades you can't even count. You just can't keep doing - you have to learn from history.
You can't keep doing the same mistake over and over again. Gaza is a hellhole right now. It was before the bombing started frankly. And we're going to give people a chance to live in a beautiful community that's safe and secure. And I think you're going to see tremendous - a tremendous outflowing of support.
I can tell you, I spoke to other leaders of countries in the Middle East and they love the idea. They say it would really bring stability and what we need is stability. ...
Question: Just a follow up on what you were saying about the Gazans leaving Gaza going to other countries. One, where exactly are you suggesting that they should go? And two, are you saying they should return after it's rebuilt? And if not, who do you envision living there?
Trump: I envision a world - people living there, the world's people. I think you'll make that into an international, unbelievable place. I think the potential in the Gaza Strip is unbelievable. And I think the entire world, representatives from all over the world will be there and they'll -
Question: [Inaudible] Palestinians?
Trump: And they'll live there. Palestinians also. Palestinians will live there, many people will live there. But they've tried the other and they've tried it for decades and decades and decades. It's not going to work. It didn't work. It will never work. And you have to learn from history. History has - you know, you just can't let it keep repeating itself.
We have an opportunity to do something that could be phenomenal. And I don't want to be cute. I don't want to be a wise guy. But the Riviera of the Middle East, this could be something that could be so - this could be so magnificent. But more importantly than that is the people that have been absolutely destroyed that live there now can live in peace in a much better situation because they are living in hell. And those people will now be able to live in peace. We'll make sure that it's done world class.
It will be wonderful for the people. Palestinians, Palestinians mostly we're talking about. And I have a feeling that despite them saying no, I have a feeling that the king in Jordan and that the general president [Sisi] - but that the general in Egypt will open their hearts and will give us the kind of land that we need to get this done, and people can live in harmony and in peace.
(2) My tweet on this topic:
Trump: "The U.S. will take over the #Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too [and] we'll own it."
Me: That may be the most absurd foreign policy statement ever by an American president. pic.twitter.com/9Boix4q5xe
— Daniel Pipes دانيال بايبس 🇺🇦 (@DanielPipes) February 5, 2025
(3) Martin Sherman sent me these comments on the article above:
Any policy other than population removal is a rerun – in one form or another – of Oslo or equally failed derivatives based on the vain hope that some "domesticated" Palestinian can be located, who has both the willingness and the authority to sustain a long-term peace (or at least non-belligerence) agreement with the (now even more) hated Zionist entity. This failed before (repeatedly) and will fail Miami (inevitably) again
The entire population of Gaza (not all of whom are radical extremists) is barely 2% of Egypt's population and just a touch more for Turkey. As a percentage of the entire population of Egypt and Turkey, Gaza's population is a shade over 1% - hardly enough to induce tectonic socio-political changes in these countries. Egypt could easily absorb a million new immigrants in the new city being constructed east of Cairo, planned for 6-7 million, without a perceptible ripple. Turkey needs Sunni Muslims to offset its growing "demographic problem" with the Kurds. 1% of its population would be almost 900,000.
Sadly, the general public in Gaza is not the victim of Hamas. Rather, it is the crucible in which Hamas was forged and the incubator from which it emerged. Hamas is not an imposition on an otherwise placid population, but the true reflection of the innermost desires of a savage horde.
The political rationale of the Gaza conflict can be expressed in the inexorable logic of an almost mathematical algorithm, one studiously and tragically ignored by Israel's policy-making echelons.
Clearly, the only way Israel can ensure who governs Gaza is to govern it itself. Moreover, the only way Israel can govern Gaza without imposing its rule on "another people", is to remove that "other people" from the confines of Gaza, over which it must rule. This is not "right wing extremism", merely sound and sober political science.
To which I answer:
You dismiss "the vain hope that some 'domesticated' Palestinian can be located," but in doing so, you fall into the same trap as the security establishment you rightly scorn, that of assuming that Palestinians are unchanging. To take two examples from European history: the English and French fought viciously for 750 years, then made up; after engaging in unparalleled viciousness for 75 years, the Germans became an entirely civilized people. Don't make the mistake of assuming the past determines the future.
My article distinguishes the policy you advocate, the voluntary emigration of Gazans, from Trump's, their forced emigration. It surprises me that you have abandoned your position in favor of his. Are you sure you want to do this? That way lies perdition.
A simple mathematical calculation of populations in Egypt and Turkey ignores the fact that a highly political cohort can have an outsized impact.
Why bring in Turkey when the topic is Egypt and Jordan? Jordan has a much smaller population, as you well know.
While discussing Turkey, let me remind you that Kurds are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslims. I'll also note that the Turkish experience with another Arabic-speaking immigrant population, the Syrians, has not been a happy one, making their likely receptivity to taking in Gazans very negative.
Feb. 5, 2025 update: (1) Trump's press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, walked back some of his remarks. She
insisted he was advocating only for a "temporary" relocation of Palestinians from Gaza, despite Trump asserting a day earlier that no one should be returning to the strip. She also said Trump hadn't committed to sending US troops to Gaza – though he didn't rule it out – and downplayed possible US financial obligations to securing, as Trump described it, "long-term ownership" of the strip.
The Times of Israel has collected other walk-backs.
(2) Mitchell Bard reiterates my position at "Trump's Gaza plan threatens Israel." Good to see someone else is not swooning.
Feb. 6, 2025 update: Further confusing the issue, Trump added today:
The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting. The Palestinians, people like Chuck Schumer, would have already been resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region. They would actually have a chance to be happy, safe, and free. The U.S., working with great development teams from all over the World, would slowly and carefully begin the construction of what would become one of the greatest and most spectacular developments of its kind on Earth. No soldiers by the U.S. would be needed! Stability for the region would reign!!!
Feb. 7, 2025 update: Trump continues the back-track, saying of his plan that
It's been very well received. Basically, the United States would view it as a real estate transaction where we will be an investor in that part of the world. We wouldn't need anybody there. It would be supplied and given to us by Israel. They'll watch it in terms of security. We're not talking about boots on the ground or anything, but I think the fact that we're there, that we have an investment there, I think would go a long way to creating peace.
We just want to see stability ... and we wouldn't need soldiers at all, that will be taken care of by others, and the investments are taken care of by others. So, for no investment, I mean virtually no investment whatsoever, it would bring stability to the area and others can invest in it later on. But we're in no rush on it. It's absolutely no rush.
Comment: What began as hair-brained ends in incoherence.
Feb. 10, 2025 update: It's getting even crazier. Trump has now announced that Gazans would be permanently displaced and he would (personally?) own Gaza.
In other words, I'm talking about building a permanent place for [Gazans] because if they have to return now, it'll be years before you could ever—it's not habitable. It would be years before it could happen.
Would displaced Palestinians have the right to return to Gaza?
No, they wouldn't. ... We'll build safe communities, a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is. In the meantime, I would own this. Think of it as a real-estate development for the future. It would be a beautiful piece of land. No big money spent.
