If the idea is dangerous, the impulse behind it is perhaps worthwhile. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP via Getty
Only Donald Trump can unselfconsciously talk about one of the world’s most obstinate political and humanitarian crises in terms of its real estate opportunities. Only Trump can be taken seriously while doing so. And so here we are.
“We’re going to develop it, we’re going to create thousands and thousands of jobs,” he gushed while discussing Gaza’s potential to become the Middle East’s “Riviera”. This followed comments he made immediately after his inauguration about its “phenomenal location on the sea — best weather”.
The Palestinians who live in Gaza would, he continued, be taken in by Egypt and Jordan. Both countries, he was certain, would “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 peace”.
Benjamin Netanyahu, standing next to him, was clearly taken by surprise, though clearly also not unpleasantly so. These words were, he said, “worth paying attention to”. Trump, he added, “sees a different future for that piece of land that has been the focus of so much terrorism… I think it’s something that could change history”.
In contrast, allies and adversaries across the world mainly reacted with the same horror that was written across White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles’ face as Trump outlined his vision. Hamas called the plan “racist” and vowed to prevent its implementation, while the Palestinian Authority described it — not incorrectly — as a severe breach of international law.
Jordan and Egypt were similarly outraged. Both receive huge amounts of US aid (third and fourth largest recipients respectively in 2023), which means that Washington does have considerable leverage. But when you consider what is being asked, and of whom, then even those colossal sums are likely to be inadequate.
Let’s start with Jordan. When it became an independent state, in 1946, it did so as a largely Palestinian one — led by a British-installed Hashemite monarchy. Today, one in five Jordanians is of Palestinian descent, while more than two million Palestinian refugees already live there. For Amman to absorb more would threaten its very viability as a Hashemite state.
There’s also a deeper anxiety here. Back in 1970, during the Black September conflict, Jordanian forces and Palestinian groups clashed after a failed assassination attempt on King Hussein and the hijacking of four planes by a Palestinian terror group. A massacre ensued, and only ended with the expulsion of the PLO from Jordan. The Hashemite monarchy internalised a lesson: give the Palestinians any room in the country and they will try to take control. Import a million or so now, and the result might not be so favourable. King Abdullah may not want to go against Washington, but if it’s a choice between that or the end of his monarchy then there is no choice.
Egypt is, arguably, even more vulnerable if there were a Palestinian influx. The idea that President el-Sisi, who overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood in a coup, will now import its offshoot, Hamas, is hardly serious. Nor can he afford to be seen as complicit in the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Polling by the Washington Institute a year ago found that 97% of Egyptians agreed Arab states should “immediately sever all diplomatic, political, economic, and any other contacts with Israel, in protest against its military action in Gaza”. El-Sisi has maintained relations with Israel. But imagine his people’s reaction if he helped Jerusalem empty Gaza.
An angry population is a destabilising one. And Egypt is already an economic basket case, suffering from inflation, a nosediving currency and substantial debt. If it collapses, the region and the world will suffer the consequences. And if there is one state in the world that has a particular interest in Egypt holding together, it is Israel. To have 112 million desperate and enraged Egyptians next door would probably be a threat greater than any it has yet faced.
The shock of Trump’s Riviera has reverberated beyond Palestine’s immediate neighbours. Normalisation with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been a longstanding goal of both the Trump and Netanyahu administrations, but after Trump’s words Riyadh was unequivocal: there will be no diplomatic relations with Israel without a Palestinian state. I know from multiple sources that the Saudis don’t actually care about the Palestinians; and that their crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is keen for normalisation with Jerusalem. But Trump’s real estate plan has left Riyadh with no alternative but to publicly support a two-state solution (which was not necessary for the signing of the Saudi-supported Abraham Accords). Since this is out of the question for Netanyahu, Trump has inadvertently pushed normalisation further out of reach.
That the “plan” would be a gross violation of international law is probably irrelevant to Trump. But if he were to succeed in turning Gaza into a riviera, what does he think the millions of displaced Gazans would do? They would consider it a second Nakba. Gaza city would become a seafront paradise where residents sipped Negronis under rocket fire from Egypt and took cold plunges as Hamas terrorists emerged bellowing from tunnels across the border. US troops would be stuck there for decades. A surely less-than-ideal scenario for a man who has repeatedly stated his desire to end US involvement in foreign wars.
Netanyahu understands all this. He is a sociopath with a messiah complex; he genuinely believes his destiny is to save Western civilisation from the scourge of radical Islam. He is also the man who, before October 7, brought Israel to the brink of civil unrest. But he is also incredibly smart and probably the most able state leader in the world right now. His assessment that Trump’s proposal was “worth paying attention to” was pointedly mealy-mouthed — in contrast to his fascistic former coalition partner Itamar Ben-Gvir’s enthusiastic assessment that Trump’s plan represents “the only solution”.
But if this idea is dangerous, impetuous and unlikely to see the light of day, the impulse behind it (even though borne from instinct rather than design) — to think about a seemingly unsolvable problem in a new light, however crazed, is perhaps worthwhile. As policy, Trump’s Gaza plan is a disaster; as a thought experiment, it’s absurd. But such an unthinkable suggestion might actually kickstart the sort of unorthodox, disruptive thinking that has eluded more measured, knowledgeable and sharper minds — and which has helped to keep peace so tortuously at bay for almost 60 years.
David Patrikarakos is UnHerd‘s foreign correspondent. His latest book is War in 140 characters: how social media is reshaping conflict in the 21st century. (Hachette)
dpatrikarakos 
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeTariffs seem to be all about penalizing other places, or trying to create level playing fields. We never seem to hear discussions about how to make the U.S. a more attractive place to set up shop in the first place. Eliminating the corporate income tax would be a good start. It doesn’t raise much revenue anyway and is mostly paid by customers. This should incentivize companies to move their headquarters and their factories to the U.S., much like Ireland was able to do with a low corporate income tax. Companies would need to employ a certain percentage of their employee base in the U.S. in order to qualify for zero income tax status.
Another pretentious China nonsensical shill post. Boring and inane.
Chinese companies partnering with intermediaries won’t bypass Trump’s tariffs unless those intermediaries are willing to face the same penalties as China. Accurately tracing supply chain origins isn’t as challenging as the author assumes. Moreover, the additional costs from shipping, assembly, transshipment, and intermediary-specific risks—whether political, labor-related, or economic—will significantly drive up the final product’s price.
Shoot the board
Toss the board of US company that plays musical trade chairs in prison
Author still thonks it’s 2010.
The author of this article gets lost in his own weeds. Somewhere in here is a point, but I cannot find it, in all the verbiage. I assume he disagrees with tariffs as an economic tool for negotiation (try selling an American product in China, btw) but the reasons aren’t given. Instead, point follows point, without anything to connect them together in neat fashion. No stars.
It’s simple.
You just change the definition of “built in”, for instance you just need coc for all of the major components. Course then you get into third party inspections and such.
Your 2 dollar widget comes in a little higher.
The real issue are go after:
China – as shown by this article in “supply chain whack-a-mole”
OR
The focus should be on making corporations accountable to the country that provides them the incentives and security to do business. Instead of promoting superficial ideas of governance like diversity or social responsibility as mere branding, corporations should contribute to national security payments to help build infrastructure in their home country. I think Americans would love to hear the words National Security!
This approach wouldn’t kill their profits—they can continue manufacturing cheaply abroad, but they must also invest in the U.S. If they don’t, there should be consequences: no bailouts, no security guarantees, and higher taxes anyway!
This may be political juggernaut for any politician but either he gets it done or puts the seed for a better person to come in the future and force the corporations hands!
Trump wanting to re-shore jobs lost to China is admirable and what many who voted for him believe he’ll do. Nothing mentioned though about a spike in inflation/cost of living for some time whilst this happens. They are expecting some pretty immediate positive market signals not rising prices.
Thus the question is how much pain is Trump prepared to take in trying to meet this objective? And how much pain has he warned his supporters they’ll have to take re: inflation/cost of living before the promised re-shoring really happens. I’m not recollecting he’s been that straight with them or have we missed something?
Then there are all those who helped fund his election, and interestingly endeavour to keep that secret. (The funding for the transition team is usually fully disclosed but not under Trump). So some ‘big money’ in the shadows and won’t be expecting to take a hit after backing him.
China is going to test these contradictions for sure.
Sounds like Mexico has got what’s coming as much as China. And hopefully no producing of little remixes of NAFTA this time, the new administration.
This author is making the same mistake most globalist apologists also make. He considers the critical factor to be where the money comes from and who owns what. He’s probably lived his whole life in that world with that mindset, a world of profits, balance sheets, costs of labor, etc. What he and a lot of others don’t live in that world, and these days many are hostile to it. Americans are well past caring whose corporate accounts record what profits in trade with China or whoever else. All they know is they haven’t seen any of it for a long time and they’re tired of this situation. For better or worse, this is what’s coming. Even if Trump fails, it won’t change the basic political or economic situation on the ground. Americans hate the corporations, hate big business, hate the executives, and hate the capital class. It runs deep. They don’t care about keeping American elites richer than their Chinese counterparts. As far as they’re concerned, the capital class has already betrayed the country and the people.
Along those same lines, people don’t care about ownership. A factory built in a friendly country like Mexico or Japan isn’t as good as a factory built in America, but it’s better than the same factory built in China. Who owns it is irrelevant. Possession is 9/10 of the law. The reality is that much of the economic benefit of economic activity, especially industrial production, is reaped by the people wherever the physical infrastructure is because that’s where the jobs are and that’s where all the satellite industries that provide services and other things for that factory are. If you want to start a restaurant, it helps to have customers that have money and factory employees have money. If you want to provide security, or office supplies, or transportation, or whatever other service, you need customers to serve, a center of economic activity, like a factory. This is what tariffs are about. It’s not about growing the economy. It’s not about ownership. It’s about the bottom line of where the factory is and who benefits from that. Whether the factory is run by corporate overlords from China or America or outer space doesn’t matter to voters. Americans don’t give a flip. The capital class doesn’t seem to care about American workers, so American workers are returning the favor. They’d probably rather have Chinese owned factories in Cleveland than American factories in Guangzhou by many orders of magnitude. What goes around comes around. American companies pursued profits without regards to where the labor came from or who got the jobs, so American voters are pursuing jobs and benefits without regard to where the capital comes from or who reaps the profits. The chickens of globalism are coming home to roost. This is not a good time to be an American elite engaged in global trade.
There’s a fair chance that the clash between populist sentiments and the elite push back against them will indeed spark an economic crisis, perhaps even another Great Depression, but there was a chance of that happening anyway even if nothing changed. Even if it does happen, maybe it needs to. The problems are so systemic it might take a disruption of that magnitude to change incentives enough to start to crawl out of this hole we’ve dug for ourselves. If/when it happens, it won’t matter who is president. Trump or whoever else might get some of the blame, but the people will pin the lion’s share of the blame on the billionaires who drive the globalist enterprise. They won’t suddenly forget the people they despise and start throwing stones at their chosen champion. No indeed, they won’t forget. They won’t forget the decades of closing factories. They won’t forget the private jets and private yachts and giant mansions of the billionaires who have built their fortunes upon the globalist scheme. The people will be even angrier, and they’ll go even further to smash the elites. Billionaires will get no sympathy, and no quarter, from the American working class. The sharks are circling. The defeated globalists would be wise not to rock the boat.
Why Trump is beating around the bush of China though? Do you think he is afraid of impeachment,?
I think he’s probably afraid of triggering another round of inflation. Further, he’s a deal maker who uses yhe other side’s uncertainty to his advantage. He wants them to be afraid of the threat of immediate decoupling and an escalating tariff war that decimates both sides in the short term because Trump has for all intents and purposes already sold the narrative that China and global trade have not benefited Americans enough to offset the losses. He can press the economic nuclear button and blame the other side. Xi can attempt to do the same but China’s economy is specifically and strategically designed to manufacture goods at low cost to sell to a global market, of which the Us represents a significant share. Put simply if the Chinese cannot sell to America, they cannot profit from their strategy of subsidized manufacturing and artificially low prices. Their economic model becomes unprofitable. True, they can still sell to America through intermediaries and third parties, but those third parties will then capture some portion of the overall profits for their nations while holding a certain power over the Chinese regime by controlling access to the American market. Over the long term, decoupling would hurt the USA, but it would completely break China, whose totalitarian government would probably turn all that suddenly useless productive capacity to weapons manufacture, setting the Second Cold War up to resemble the first. I suspect Trump, and most of the people who voted for him can live with that even if it becomes hard to get manufactured goods for some period of time, because the cost of food won’t be affected and the cost of energy would almost certainly drop. These are the only types of inflation poor Americans really care about anyway.
So much this. Americans are also well aware who sold out their manufacturing base in the first place and who profited from it.
These people tend to be foreign policy hawks — such as current National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan — who are concerned about the rise of China and want to stifle Beijing’s growth through a combination of tariffs and sanctions, especially against semiconductors.
So, are tariffs bad in principle or only when Trump mentions them?
It’s a Pilkington article, therefore anything that may damage non western nations such as China or Russia are abhorrent
Article explains the difference between people who want tariffs to encourage reshoring , & more selective tariffs to encourage ‘friend shoring’
Boring… We all know Trump is wrong