Trump Appears to Back Away From His Gaza Plan

President Trump on Friday appeared to back off his demand that some two million Palestinians be permanently relocated from the Gaza Strip to nearby countries in the Middle East so the United States could take over the territory and develop it into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”

Earlier this month, the president said he favored taking control of Gaza and displacing the Palestinian population of the devastated seaside enclave. Over the course of several days, he repeatedly waved aside objections to the idea, including flat-out rejections from the leaders of Egypt and Jordan.

At the time, Mr. Trump said that he would be able to persuade the leaders of those two countries — and potentially others in the region — to accept the Palestinians through the force of his will.

“They say they’re not going to accept,” Mr. Trump said. “I say they will.”

But in a telephone interview with a Fox News host on Friday, Mr. Trump seemed to concede that his efforts at persuasion had failed and the refusal by Egypt and Jordan to accept displaced Gazans would make the idea unworkable.

“Well, we pay Jordan and Egypt billions of dollars a year. And I was a little surprised they’d say that, but they did,” Mr. Trump told the Fox News host Brian Kilmeade before adding: “I’ll tell you, the way to do it is my plan. I think that’s the plan that really works. But I’m not forcing it. I’m just going to sit back and recommend it.”

The comments were a striking reversal for one of the most brazen foreign policy proposals ever made by a sitting president. And they came after weeks of back-and-forth that included several high-ranking Trump administration officials trying to downplay the proposal, followed by the president insisting that he was serious.