His Majesty King Abdullah II of Jordan will begin a visit to the United States tomorrow, 30 January.
He will be the first Arab leader to meet the new Trump administration. It is unknown if he will meet the President while he is in the country.
The Jordanian embassy said on Thursday, “HM King Abdullah II will start a working visit to U.S. on Monday during which he will meet [with the] new administration & Congress.”
The King was recently in Russia where Russia’s President Putin thanked His Majesty for the Jordanian support of the peace process in Syria. The Jordanian military is part of the coalition led by the United States fighting against the Islamic State in Syria.
If His Majesty does meet the President, it will be quite interesting to see how the talks go after President Trump signed an executive order banning people from seven predominately Muslim countries from entering the United States for 90 days. The countries banned are Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. The order, which has caused an uproar across the US and the world, also includes a ban of refugees for 120 days but bans Syrian refugees for the foreseeable future.
Jordan has taken in over 600,000 refugees since the conflict began. The Jordanian government believes there are over one million undocumented refugees in the country, as well. Last February, King Abdullah said that Jordan was almost to a boiling point with the huge number of refugees in the country, and he implored the West to help.
If he does meet with President Trump, he will not be the first member of the Jordanian Royal Family to meet one of the Trumps. At the beginning of January, Queen Rania travelled to New York City and met the President’s oldest daughter, Ivanka Trump in Trump Tower. They discussed issues “related to women around the world,” according to Vanity Fair. Reportedly, Ivanka told her that she would focus on those matters after her father began his first term. Mr Trump took office on 20 January.
