WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump backed off his threat to withhold U.S. aid for Jordan after King Abdullah II agreed during a White House meeting to accept 2,000 ill children from Gaza.

Trump on Tuesday reiterated his desire for the United States to take ownership of Gaza, but Abdullah sidestepped questions about the lightning-rod plan, saying he would discuss the future of the territory at an upcoming meeting in Saudi Arabia once Egypt presents its proposal.

The U.S. president called the king’s offer to resettle sick children a “beautiful” gesture and heaped praise on the Jordanian leader.

“We contribute a lot of money to Jordan and to Egypt, by the way, a lot to both. But I don’t have to threaten that. I think we’re above that,” Trump told reporters.

Near the start of the meeting, Abdullah said he would get the children, who are either cancer patients or “in a very ill state,” to Jordan “as quickly as possible.”

Trump’s call to turn the Gaza Strip into a U.S.-owned “Riviera” has drawn widespread condemnation in the Middle East, potentially imperiling the fragile truce between Israel and Hamas. But Abdullah’s visit to Washington shows Arab leaders have little choice but to deal with the emboldened U.S. president.

Abdullah had been expected to deliver a message from his cohorts that Trump’s proposal was a nonstarter. Critics have said the plan amounts to ethnic cleansing. Jordan and Egypt already rejected his plan to relocate Gaza’s Palestinians to their countries in order to rebuild a strip that he has called a “demolition site.”

The king reaffirmed his rejection of Trump’s plan after his failure to do so publicly at the White House drew condemnation on social media. In a posting on X, Abdullah said he had reiterated to Trump Jordan’s unwavering position against displacing Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

Trump has indicated he is serious about displacement and unwilling to back down in the face of criticism. The president said “no” when asked during a recent Fox News interview if Palestinians would have the right of return to Gaza. He also suggested he could use U.S. foreign aid as leverage against Jordan and Egypt.

“I’m talking about building a permanent place for them” because Gaza is “not habitable,” Trump said in the interview.

Trump heightened that pressure Monday ahead of Abdullah’s visit, when he was asked directly by reporters if he would cut off aid to Egypt and Jordan if they did not agree to accept Palestinian refugees.

“Yeah, maybe, sure why not? If they don’t, I would conceivably withhold aid, yes,” Trump said.

The real estate developer-turned-president said Tuesday, however, that he did not plan to personally buy property in Gaza during his proposed U.S.-led rebuilding effort.

“No,” Trump said. “You could just do more good for people when you’re president.”

Jordan and Egypt were the fourth- and fifth-largest recipients of U.S. aid in 2023, according to an analysis from Bloomberg Economics. That aid accounts for less than 0.5% of Egypt’s gross domestic product but Jordan is more exposed with the assistance making up 3% of its GDP.

Fueling the solidarity with Palestinians is concern among Arab leaders about broader regional stability. In addition to the Gaza conflict, Israel has carried out strikes in Lebanon, Syria is grappling with the demise of Bashar Assad, Egypt and Jordan’s leaders have internal security woes and Saudi Arabia is once again mulling a normalization deal with Israel.

All of those dynamics could be rattled if Trump pushed ahead with a forced displacement of Palestinians after a conflict that has seen tens of thousands killed.

Trump has also added to uncertainty about the fragile ceasefire in Gaza after Hamas, designated a terrorist group by the United States, threatened to delay indefinitely the next release of Israeli hostages that’s scheduled for this weekend.

“If all the hostages aren’t returned by Saturday 12 o’clock — I think it’s an appropriate time — I would say cancel it and all bets are off and let hell break out,” Trump said,

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed that warning later Tuesday, saying that “if Hamas does not return our hostages by Saturday noon, the ceasefire will end” and the Israeli military “will resume intense fighting until the final defeat of Hamas.”

But it wasn’t immediately clear whether Netanyahu was referring to the release of all hostages or only those in the next planned exchange for Palestinians held by Israel.

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(With assistance from Alisa Odenheimer and Sherif Tarek.)

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