Secretary of State Marco Rubio will immediately follow up his first travel since assuming the position of America’s top diplomat – a tour of Central America and the Caribbean – with travel to the Middle East, multiple outlets reported on Friday.
Reuters, citing an anonymous State Department official, reported that Rubio would first travel to Europe for the Munich Security Conference, then make stops in Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia next week. The Emirati newspaper The National similarly reported the details of the tour, as did the Agence France-Presse (AFP).
One anonymous official reportedly said that President Donald Trump’s surprise announcement that he anticipates the United States will “take over” the Gaza Strip and help rehabilitate it after nearly two decades of Hamas terrorist rule would be a major topic of conversation in the region.
“The status quo can’t continue. It’s like wash, rinse, and repeat. It becomes familiar, and you begin to think this is just what life is, and what we have to expect,” the official was quoted as saying. “President Trump and Marco Rubio believe that’s not the case, that things can change.”
Trump told reporters on Tuesday that America would “take over the Gaza Strip” and “do a job with it.”
“We’ll love it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous bombs and other weapons on the site,” he explained, “and get rid of the destroyed buildings [and] create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing.”
Trump mused that the real estate potential of Gaza, situated on the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea, was “unbelievable” but impossible to obtain under the status quo, suggesting Gaza could one day become “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
“I think you’ll make [Gaza] 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,” he added.
Prior to Tuesday, Trump had repeatedly stated that he believed that reconstructing Gaza after over a year of war with Israel, triggered by Hamas invading Israel and massacring hundreds of civilians there, would be impossible if the civilians living in Gaza were not allowed to relocate so that construction, minesweeping, and other services could enter.
Trump suggested that Egypt, which shares a border with Gaza, and Jordan could take in Palestinian refugees, calling Gaza a “demolition site.” Both countries reacted viscerally to the suggestion they take in even one Palestinian refugee.
“Jordan is for Jordanians,” insisted the government in Amman, while Cairo insisted that Palestinians should practice “resilience” on their land.
Both King Abdullah II of Jordan and Egyptian strongman Abdel Fattah al-Sisi are expected to visit the White House this month and discuss plans for Gaza with Trump.
Rubio, asked about Gaza during a press conference in the Dominican Republic on Thursday, asserted that Gaza in its current state is “uninhabitable” and that Trump’s proposal for American involvement was made in the absence of any feasible suggestions for how to rebuild Gaza and allow its inhabitants to live with dignity there by its neighbors.
“That place right now – and I think the aerial images confirm – is not habitable, not just because of destruction due to the conflict and the fact that the Hamas cowards hide underground,” Rubio explained, “but also because there are unexploded munitions; there are all kinds of weapons, including Hamas weapons, in the location.”
“I think President Trump has offered to go in and be a part of that solution, and if some other country is willing to step forward and do it themselves, then that would be great,” he added. “But no one seems to be rushing forward to do that, and that has to happen. That’s the reality.”
Rubio reiterated that “if some other country is willing to step forward and do that job themselves, then I encourage them to do so.”
“But it seems to me that there are a lot of countries in the world that like to express concern about Gaza and about the Palestinian people but very few were willing in the past to do anything concrete about it,” he concluded. “And so I think President Trump is trying to stir that and hopefully get a reaction from some countries who do have both the economic and technological capacity to contribute to a post-conflict region.”
The stops in the Middle East will revolve around a much different set of issues than those in Latin America. During his first trip abroad as secretary of state, Rubio focused on stopping mass human trafficking operations in the Western Hemisphere and confronting the malignant influence of the Chinese Communist Party in the region. He first stop was to Panama, where he discussed President Trump’s concerns that the Panamanian government had allowed China undue influence over the canal. Following his stop, the Panamanian government announced it would exit China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a global predatory loan program.
In El Salvador and Guatemala, Rubio secured commitments to accept deportation flights and contribute to the end of organized human trafficking in the region.
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