President Trump must not forget Jordan as that nation struggles against economic chaos. In addition to any U.S. aid deal — which should be forthcoming if King Abdullah II requests it — the president should thank Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates for their $2.5 billion aid package to Jordan.
As the Wall Street Journal documented on Monday, the new funds will support Jordan’s budget and allow King Abdullah II to avoid unpopular new policies. The aid package follows mass protests in Amman against Abdullah’s efforts to reform the subsidy-dependent economy and reduce his nation’s ballooning debt. Those efforts have now largely been suspended and a senior government minister replaced.
While Jordan requires long term reforms to boost foreign investment, reduce its market inefficiencies, and reform its bloated public sector, this aid grant will help procure stability in the short term. And that’s crucial for U.S. interests in that Jordan is a highly reliable ally in the Middle East. Whether in its capable GID intelligence service’s work countering ISIS or in their diplomatic support for U.S. interests in the Middle East, King Abdullah and his late father, King Hussein are true American allies. Far truer than Egypt’s former leader, Hosni Mubarak, for example. Jordan has also provided shelter to hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees fleeing Bashar Assad and Russia’s terror campaign just over the border.
From a realist’s standpoint that makes any instability in Jordan a serious concern. Although the protesters include liberals as well as Islamists, were Abdullah to fall from power, an Islamist movement could seize control and act against U.S. interests. Because of the ultimately borderless ideology that defines contemporary political Islam, a Jordanian Islamist power structure would inspire Islamist revolutions in other regional nations.
Still, although this aid grant will buy some time, without major economic reforms and broader political enfranchisement — including of Islamists (Tunisia, which has transitioned from autocracy to a constitutional democracy of competing Islamist and secularist forces, offers a positive model here) — the protests will continue.
As my former professor, Charles Tripp, notes in his book The Power and the People: Paths of Resistance in the Middle East, contemporary street protests in the Middle East often flow from two deeper structural grievances. “The first is the importance of public space and the contest between government and opposition over its occupation. The second is the centrality of the performances of the political authorities to project and reinforce their own credibility — and the consequences that follow when that fails to overawe the target audience.”
The simple point here is that Jordanians are grating against what they see as too little democratic power and too much government corruption. That concern demands our attention and should lead President Trump to work urgently with Abdullah to address his long term challenges.
