Trending Now
We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
{{ subpage.title }}
President Donald Trump before the Super Bowl.
Opinion: The world plays Two Truths and a Lie
Over his first month in office, President Donald Trump has presented a range of policy prospects as possible. He has also undertaken a wide number of presidential actions. Together, these measures have shifted the global context, leaving partners and rivals to orient to a vastly changing reality and wonder how seriously they should take him.
Trade dissonance
Despite campaigning on US trade imbalances and promising to impose global tariffs, many doggedly doubted Trump’s intentions as president. When he suggested on Truth Social last December that his administration would introduce 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico by Feb. 1, with a 10% additional tariff for China, the market held its breath. A common refrain of wait and see made the rounds. Colombia’s near-miss in late January when Trump threatened to escalate tariffs if the country did not accept military deportation flights sparked concern but felt further afield.
The mixed response to Trump’s tariff threats belies a cognitive dissonance that surrounds him and his administration. But there’s one thing anyone who’s followed Trump’s political career over the last decade should know: to believe him when he tells us what he intends to do. When he offers up an idea in a press conference, lists it on a webpage as a promise to be kept, posts about it on Truth Social, repeats it hundreds of times on the campaign trail, puts policy in place around it as president, and establishes a new governmental agency (the External Revenue Service) to execute, it is a pretty safe bet he plans to impose the tariffs.
On Feb. 1, the Trump administration formally announced tariffs on Canada and Mexico, with an additional 10% tariff on imports from China. When both Canadian and Mexican leadership reached out to Trump with commitments on border safety and curbing the flow of illegal drugs, the president agreed to a 30-day tariff reprieve. China offered no such concessions, and now the two are locked in a potentially accelerating dance of trade threats and investigations. With incoming levies on steel and aluminum, the Trump administration has already shown that it plans to rely over and over on pulling the tariff lever to further its trade agenda. This is the truth.
Foreign aid dismantling
As the new administration pursued its trade plan ambitions, details of another policy shift emerged: the apparent unwinding of the US Agency for International Development. The sudden reversal in 60 years of US foreign aid policy caught many working in the agency off-guard and sent ripples across the development community. Global headlines highlighted impacts on health missions, sustainability and climate initiatives, and frontline staff in Ukraine. Long a foundational component of American soft power, a US retrenchment on foreign aid likely opens the door for other global participants like China to step through.
Even with the fallout tally still being counted, the USAID decision was a foreseeable reaction to developing facts on the ground. Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office “reevaluating and realigning US foreign aid.” According to the order, “The United States foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values.” Trump immediately implemented a 90-day pause in US foreign development assistance. Likewise, in his capacity as head of the new Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk has persistently targeted USAID as a “criminal organization” and “beyond repair.”
Drowned out by attention on some of the administration’s more headline-grabbing maneuvers like an end to “Birthright Citizenship” and an extended pause on the TikTok ban, the impact on US foreign aid was initially overlooked. But the underlying context was there. This is another truth.
Middle East dismay
Trump saved the boldest declaration of his young administration for the arena of US hard power. Last week, Trump proposed an alternative trajectory for the Middle East: He repeatedly called for Egypt, Jordan, and others to accept millions of Palestinians from Gaza. At a press conference following meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, Trump took it a step further, suggesting that “The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too.”
Trump’s plan to “own” Gaza and convert it into the “Riviera of the Middle East” stunned the global audience. While Trump’s plans struck like lightning, they were not without prior seeding. According to reports, a thread of redeveloping Gaza has been woven at times throughout the Trump presidential campaign, including by the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner early last year. In response, voices ranging from the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman to the French foreign ministry raised deep concerns. Even still, as farfetched as Trump’s Gaza ambitions may seem, they provide a barometer of how far the current administration is willing to push the envelope. A fabrication, for now, but with designs on converting some kernel – “a concept of a plan” – into reality.
In describing the “historic proposal” for the US to take over Gaza, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt explained that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Through a breakneck pace of policy change and action, the Trump administration has demonstrated a willingness to rethink the “same thing.” Everyone else is left to calibrate to the new dynamics, pondering if it just might all turn out to be truths.
Lindsay Newman is a geopolitical risk expert and columnist for GZERO.
What is Trump's Gaza playbook?
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Want to talk about Gaza, which has not been as much in the headlines over the past month because so much other news has been emanating from Washington post Trump's inauguration. But he made some news on Gaza and it's relevant to the ongoing war and ceasefire, which is this idea that the United States is going to take over Gaza, develop it and make it into the Riviera, a new Riviera on the Mediterranean. Certainly they have the beachfront property, they don't have the infrastructure, especially not after the war over the last year plus. Trump saying that no US troops would be involved, but it's an enormous opportunity. The Palestinians would have to be resettled. It's not a new plan. He's been talking about this for the last year together with advisors. The idea that there's an enormous amount of money, particularly from the Gulf, that could be interested in investing on the ground. That security could be provided by the Egyptians. That the Palestinians could be temporarily resettled in Egypt, maybe in Jordan.
They would, at least in principle, have the right to return. But I mean, how much money? Probably $20 billion minimum. What's temporary mean? Probably talking about a generation. Are the Palestinians likely to believe that given what's happened on the ground in the West Bank? Hard to imagine. What does governance for the Palestinians look like? Well, Trump no longer supports a two-state solution, which he did support back in the days of the Abraham Accords. Others in the region certainly do, and they, at least in principle though, they're not willing to do an awful lot to bring that about. Of course, the two-state solution, if you are Arab in the region, doesn't necessarily mean democratic governance after all, with the exception of Israel. It's not like you have democratically elected governments across these states. So you're probably talking about something more technocratic and appointed. But still, what's happened is as Trump has been discussing this, the Jordanians and the Egyptians are unhappy and saying, "No way will they take any Palestinians."
The Gulf states are unhappy. The UAE, which has discussed some of this plan with Israel directly, slow rolling how much they'd be willing to do. The Saudis saying they don't support it. And so Trump with all of that and with Prime Minister Netanyahu coming to Washington DC said, "Fine, I'll make an announcement by myself. I'll just do it if you refuse to be a part of it." And then the US diplomats were spending day and night back channeling with Gulf allies saying, "He didn't really mean he was going to take over all of it. He's not planning on taking over the land. Don't worry about it." What I would say is this is an opening strategy to try to get all of the states in the region together with Israel and negotiate what the development of Gaza would possibly look like. To get some commitments for investment. To get some commitments for security.
And there's a lot of space between all of the Palestinians are resettled because certainly they're not all interested in leaving. But some of them certainly are. And you can hardly blame them even though it's their homeland because there is nothing left and it's really hard to get humanitarian aid in, and it's not likely to get meaningfully better, even with the ceasefire, which may not hold up anytime soon. And given the fact that 80% of Israelis polled in the Jerusalem Post, which is a pretty middle of the road survey group and media institution in Israel, say they want all of the Palestinians in Gaza resettled. Given that and given the fact that if you were to engage in reconstruction that security would be necessary, there's going to be an effort to at least create buffer zones, which means more resettlements internally and a desire to allow Palestinians that want to leave the ability to leave.
And Trump would love to create some facts on the ground there. The way he's creating facts on the ground by bringing some illegal migrants in the United States to Guantanamo. There aren't facilities for them, so they set up some tents. But even if it's only one or two planes, suddenly it becomes a policy. And that's precisely what the Trump administration wants to see with the Palestinians and Gaza is that if you are getting out a few busloads or a few shiploads or a few plane loads, then suddenly it's not a question of can they be resettled, but how many and over what time? It's a very different policy discussion, and that's exactly where they and the Israeli government are looking to get to. Now, who's going to take these Palestinians? Right now nobody. Trump was asked if he was going to be willing to, if the United States what his response was, "Well, it's really too far," which doesn't seem to be his perspective for the white Afrikaners in South Africa who are even farther away.
So maybe it's not really about distance. It might be something else. But nonetheless, I do expect that when Trump says that the Egyptians and Jordanians will take some, that if they are paid to take some and what some means and what kind of population and how they're going to be vetted is all to be discussed. But some would not surprise me at all, might be a matter of hundreds or a few thousand. I don't think it's a matter of hundreds of thousands. But again, it starts that conversation. It changes the policy. And especially if we end up reopening the fighting in Gaza, which I think is quite likely over the coming weeks and months, then there becomes more urgency to engage for some of the Palestinians there in more resettlement, more willingness to. So that's what I think this is all about right now.
We are not close to a Palestinian state. We are not close to a broad agreement that would allow the Gulfies to engage fully in what Trump is demanding or to expand the Abraham Accords, to include Saudi Arabia opening diplomatic ties with Israel. But all of this is on the table and is the backdrop for what Trump is putting forward right now. So that's what we're talking about and something we'll be watching really closely. Hope everyone's doing well, and I'll talk to you all real soon.
Or Levy, Eli Sharabi, and Ohad Ben Ami, hostages held in Gaza since the deadly Oct. 7, 2023 attack, are released by Hamas militants as part of a ceasefire and a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel on Feb. 8, 2025.
Hostage release sparks outrage, Israel withdraws from more of Gaza
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was reportedly shocked by their condition and vowed to bring the remaining hostages home. “Due to the harsh condition of the three hostages and the repeated violations of the Hamas terror groups,” his office said in a statement, “the prime minister has ordered that Israel will not gloss over this and will take action as needed.” Hamas, meanwhile, says it won’t release more hostages until Israel withdraws completely from Gaza.
What’s next? Under the terms of the ceasefire, Israel withdrew from Gaza’s Netzarim corridor on Sunday, allowing thousands of displaced Palestinians to return north. But military operations continue: Israeli forces on Sunday killed three Palestinians in Gaza and two women in the West Bank, one of whom was pregnant, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
And as nations continue to reject US President Donald Trump’s controversial proposal to relocate Gaza’s inhabitants to other parts of the Middle East, Netanyahu suggested that a Palestinian state could be established in Saudi Arabia. While the Israeli PM reportedly appeared to be joking, Riyadh immediately repudiated the comments. Qatar, which is set to mediate the next round of the ceasefire talks between Hamas and Israel this week, also condemned the remarks.
Demonstrators attend a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to resettle Palestinians from Gaza, in front of the U.S. consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, February 6, 2025.
Who’s really playing the long game for Gaza?
President Donald Trump is doubling down on his proposal to remove Palestinians from Gaza for resettlement. He insisted early Thursday that Israel will give the territory to the US, with no military intervention required (The UN and other international bodies would argue that Gaza is an occupied territory and isn’t Israel’s to hand over).
Trump then signed an order on Thursday imposing sanctions on the International Criminal Court, accusing it of “illegitimate and baseless actions” for having issued an arrest warrant last year against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes in Gaza. The court’s president, Judge Tomoko Akane, has said such sanctions undermine the ICC’s work and put “the very existence of the court at stake.”
The move came just days after Trump discussed turning Gaza into a seaside resort — a “Riviera of the Middle East” — during his press conference with Netanyahu at the White House on Tuesday.
After 15 months of bombardment, nearly 70% of the territory’s buildings have been destroyed, with an estimated $18.5 billion in damage. Gaza’s decimated healthcare system is no match for mass starvation and the communicable diseases affecting the remaining population. Though the current cessation in hostilities ostensibly allows more aid to flow into Gaza, that’s more challenging now that the Trump administration has paused USAID funding and Israel has outlawed the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
Netanyahu and some 80% percent of Jewish Israelis support Trump’s suggestion to move Gazans to neighboring countries like Jordan and Egypt. But much of the rest of the world has dismissed it as inhumane and dangerous. Jordan’s King Abdullah II, who meets with Trump on Feb. 11, said that ethnically cleansing Gaza and displacing Palestinians in Egypt and Jordan would incite a new generation of Palestinian resistance and cause further regional upheaval. Jordan and Egypt have flatly rejected the notion of taking in Gazans en masse; Jordan notably absorbed hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees following the 1948 and 1967 wars.
Trump wants Gulf states to help fund Gaza’s recovery, but countries like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and UAE have declined, insisting on a future Palestinian state.
Was this just an opening gambit? The US president may just be pushing the boat out to try and provoke other ideas, says Jon Alterman, Middle East director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “[Other actors] will come up with other ideas, and Trump will begin wheeling and dealing and saying, ‘Look what I could evoke,’” he said.
But regional leaders are unlikely to take steps outside their best interests. The key to leverage in the Middle East is longevity, and Gulf leaders have a much longer time horizon than any US president. It’s important to remember, Alterman says, that US presidents “don’t have the necessity of living with long-term consequences of short-term decisions” the way leaders in the Middle East do.
Gulf leaders “have all seen presidents come and go. The pressures are different, and they're willing to accommodate American presidents and flatter American presidents and ignore American presidents, but it’s all playing a long game.”
Silhouettes of soldiers stand in front of a computer screen displaying an image of President Donald Trump, alongside a Palestinian flag, on Feb. 05, 2025.
Trump aides scramble to clarify Gaza proposal amid backlash
Unsurprisingly, much of the world reacted with horror to US President Donald Trump’s call on Monday, at a press conference with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, for the deportation of the Gaza Strip’s 2.2 million people and a US takeover of the enclave.
But the Trump administration was forced to reckon with blowback in Washington too as lawmakers, even within the Republican Party, questioned the cost and wisdom of the plan.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt clarified that despite Trump’s pledge to make Gaza “the Riviera of the Middle East,” the US does not intend to spend money on any Gaza reconstruction projects and that Trump’s plans did not entail “boots on the ground” in the enclave.
Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff reportedly fielded a barrage of questions about these issues during a closed-door session with GOP lawmakers on Wednesday. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth lauded Trump’s willingness to “think outside the box” but said only that the Pentagon would “look at all options.”
Sec. of State Marco Rubiosaid Trump had made a “generous” offer and contradicted his boss’s resettlement proposal by saying that the displacement of Gazans would be “temporary.”
Notably, no administration officials ruled out the core of Trump’s proposal, which was the forced removal of the entire Gazan population. According to legal scholars, this would amount to a “straightforward” crime against humanity under international law.
On Thursday, notably, the Israeli defense minister asked the army to formulate a plan under which Palestinians could “voluntarily” leave Gaza by land, air, or sea. And Trump posted to his social platform Thursday morning that the Gaza Strip will “be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio embraces Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo at the end of their joint news conference at the National Palace in Guatemala City, on Feb. 5, 2025.
Hard Numbers: Guatemala to take more deportees, Trump vs. transgender athletes, Google axes AI-weapon ban, Taliban shuts women’s radio, Israelis like Trump’s Gaza plan, Scientists unwrap ancient scroll
40: During a press conference with visiting Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo announced Wednesday that his country will accept 40% more deportation flights from the United States. Guatemala also agreed to the creation of a task force for border control aimed at fighting “all forms of transnational crime.” Under the previous administration, Guatemala received roughly 14 deportation flights per week.
20: President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order that aims to bar federal funding for schools that allow transgender athletes to compete in girls’ and women’s sports, claiming it violates Title IX. The order conflicts with laws in 20 states protecting transgender people from discrimination and allowing them to play on sports teams. It remains to be seen whether any of those states will file lawsuits to try to override the order.
2: Alphabet — Google’s parent company — has updated its AI principles, removing a previous pledge not to use AI for defense or surveillance purposes that “cause or are likely to cause overall harm.” Google’s head of AI on Tuesday said the move reflected a changing world and that it “supports national security.” The news comes just two months after AI leader OpenAI made a similar policy change.
12: In another blow to women’s rights in Afghanistan, officers from the Taliban’s Ministry of Information and Culture on Tuesday raided andshut down the country’s only women’s radio station and arrested two employees. The Taliban, who closed at least 12 media outlets last year, blamed the suspension on violations of broadcasting policy. Kabul-based Radio Begum was not only run by women but also released content aimed at women’s education.
80: Results from a Jewish People Policy Institute Israel Index poll this weekshow that approximately 80% of Israeli Jews support President Donald Trump’s plan to relocate Gaza’s entire population. The same poll found that less than 15% believe the plan is immoral.
2,000: Scientists used X-ray imaging and AI to virtually “unwrap” ascroll uncovered in Herculaneum, Pompeii’s less famous neighbor that was also buried in the infamous 79 CE eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. It was announced Wednesday that researchers from Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries and the Vesuvius Challenge were the first to peek inside the scroll in nearly 2,000 years — and while more time is needed to fully decipher the full text, they believe it contains a work of philosophy.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians are returning to northern Gaza for the first time since the early weeks of Israel’s 15-month war with Hamas.
Northern Gaza: After return, reconstruction?
Coupled with a lack of running water and electricity, the destruction means that Gazans will depend on outside assistance for the foreseeable future – but it is not guaranteed. Last week, the UNcalled for $4.1 billion in aid for Palestinian territories this year, with 90% allocated for Gaza, but only 3.6% of the target has been funded so far.
UNRWA out? Israel is also set to close the East Jerusalem office of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, or UNRWA, on Thursday, due to the alleged collaboration of some of its employees in Hamas’ brutal invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. This, together with a ban on UNRWA dealing with Israelis, will make it impossible for it to operate in Gaza. According to Sam Rose, its acting director of emergency operations, UNRWA currently distributes half of the food sent into the territory, even that donated by other organizations, and shutting it down will leave “a gaping hole.”
Hamas makes a reconstruction proposal. While US President Donald Trump’s suggestion to “clean out” Gaza and relocate its population to Egypt and Jordan to facilitate reconstruction has beenroundly rejected, Hamas has publishedits own proposal, which may receive a warmer welcome from regional powers that do not want to take in refugees.
“Gaza Phoenix” includes formalizing displacement camps, repairing hospitals, clearing rubble, restoring law and order, as well as long-term goals including a tourism-focused economy, a green belt, and even Dubai-style artificial islands. However, its “wartime resilience” section suggests constructing “an underground connecter” between all Gaza cities – likely a nonstarter for Israel, due to the use by Hamas of its previous tunnel network in its invasion and kidnapping of Israeli hostages, eight more of whom Israel has now learned are dead.
Residents of south Lebanon, who were displaced during the war, tried to return to their villages still occupied by Israel despite the expiration of the 60-day ceasefire implementation period. These Lebanese Muslim Shiite women inspect their destroyed house in the southern Lebanese border village of Ayta ash-Shaab after returning to their devastated hamlet.
Refugee returns begin after Trump suggests Gaza exodus
Hostilities continued on Sunday in southern Lebanon, where more than 22 Lebanese civilians were killed and over 124 wounded by Israeli forces, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. Officials say that displaced residents were attempting to return home in defiance of military orders and that the Israeli military was “procrastinating” on withdrawing from the area, despite a deadline for them to do so having passed on Sunday.
Israel had also stopped thousands of Palestinians from returning to Gaza after accusing Hamas of changing the order of hostages released this week, in violation of the parties’ ceasefire agreement. Civilian Arbel Yehoud was supposed to have been freed before the four IDF soldiers were released on Saturday. But an agreement was reached early Monday to release Yehoud and two other hostages before Friday, ending the delay. In turn, Israel opened routes into north Gaza, allowing some 200,000 Palestinians to begin returning home. But they are returning to a world of destruction – nearly three-quarters of the buildings are destroyed or badly damaged in Gaza City alone.
Where should Gazans go during the rebuild? President Donald Trump’s suggestion Saturday that Palestinian refugees be transferred to Jordan and Egypt to “clean out” the territory while it undergoes reconstruction has been met with a hard “no” from Amman. On Sunday, Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said his country’s rejection of any displacement of Palestinians is “firm and unwavering.” Hamas officials similarly refused the idea while Cairo has yet to comment. At the same time, Trump also announced that the US will resume shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel, which had been halted under the administration of President Joe Biden..