President Donald Trump:“I do see a long term ownership position and I see it bringing great stability to that part of the Middle East and maybe the entire Middle East. And everybody I have spoken to, this was not a decision made lightly. Everybody I have spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land.”

LAUREN TAYLOR: Less than 24 hours after President Donald Trump proposed the U.S. take long-term ownership over the Gaza Strip and send the military in if needed, several of the president’s allies are putting some qualifiers on the president’s statement.

Both allies and adversaries of the U.S. panned the proposal, with Germany and Saudi Arabia joining Russia and China in rejecting or criticizing the idea.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the U.S.’s top diplomat, said the president only offered U.S. help in cleaning up the damage Gaza suffered in the war.

Marco Rubio / Secretary of State:“The only thing President Trump has done very generously, in my view, is offer the United States willingness to step in, clear the debris, clean the place up from all the destruction that’s on the ground, clean it up of all these unexploded munitions.”

LAUREN TAYLOR: Rubio said he hoped cleanup will allow people to move back into Gaza but did not specifically mention Palestinians. 

Approximately 2 million Palestinian people currently live in the Gaza Strip. Most wish to govern themselves, while members of the Israeli government have suggested Israel should drive the Palestinians out and control the area.

President Trump has asked neighboring countries including Egypt and Jordan about taking Palestinians but they have rejected the proposal.

The president’s call for a Gaza takeover is in line with his previous calls to add Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal Zone to U.S. territory. But expansion abroad, including possible military deployments, would undercut some of the president’s “America First” promises to pare down U.S. involvement abroad and in what he called “forever wars.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also added that the president was not committing to putting U.S. troops on the ground in Gaza.

Karoline Leavitt / White House Press Secretary: “The president has not committed to putting boots on the ground in Gaza. He has also said that the United States is not going to pay for the rebuilding of Gaza. His administration is going to work with our partners in the region to reconstruct this region. Let me just take a step back here, because this is an out of the box idea. That’s who President Trump is. That’s why the American people elected him.”

LAUREN TAYLOR: And the president’s comments on Gaza are creating a rift even among his allies in Congress.

House Speaker Mike Johnson called the proposal a “bold, decisive action” but Sen. Lindsey Graham, a key Trump ally in the Senate, told reporters Wednesday he believed the proposal was, quote, “problematic.”

For Straight Arrow News, I’m Lauren Taylor.

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