The US will take over Gaza and “own it”, Donald Trump has said.

Speaking alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, he said the two million Palestinian people living in the territory, which he described as a “demolition site”, would go to “various domains”.

Asked about deploying US troops to fill a potential security vacuum, the president replied: “We’ll do what is necessary.”

Expanding on plans for the territory, he said the US would “develop it, create thousands and thousands of jobs” and turn it into “something the entire Middle East can be very proud of”.

The president reiterated his suggestion from 25 January that Palestinians could be relocated to Egypt and Jordan – something both countries, other Arab nations including Saudi Arabia, and Palestinian leaders, have rejected.

Palestinians in Gaza could go to countries beyond Jordan and Egypt too, he said.

Asked whether he thought Egypt and Jordan would accept Palestinians, he said he believed they would.

But, he added: “I hope we could do something where they wouldn’t want to go back. Who would want to go back?

“They’ve experienced nothing but death and destruction.”

Saudi Arabia immediately responded, stressing its rejection of attempts to displace Palestinians from Gaza, and insisted it would not establish relations with Israel without a Palestinian state.

Asked on what authority the US could take control of Gaza, Mr Trump told reporters he sees a “long term ownership position” which would, he claimed, bring stability to that part of the Middle East.

“This was not a decision made lightly,” he said.

“Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs.”

It would be the “Riviera of the Middle East”.

He continued: “I’ve studied it. I’ve studied this very closely over a lot of months, and I’ve seen it from every different angle.”

He does not believe Palestinians should return to Gaza because it is a “guarantee that they’re going to end up dying”.

He talked about finding a “beautiful area to resettle people, permanently, in nice homes where they can be happy and not be shot and not be killed and not be knifed to death like what’s happening in Gaza”.

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The war, triggered by Hamas carrying out a massacre of 1,200 people and taking 250 others hostage during the 7 October 2023 attacks in Israel, has temporarily stopped since the long-sought ceasefire deal came into effect on 19 January.

More than 47,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Hamas’s attack, according to local authorities.

Mr Netanyahu, the first world leader to meet Mr Trump since the pro-Israel president’s return to the White House, sat beside the Republican as he answered questions from the press.

‘Plans change with time’

The US president hinted he would seek an independent Palestinian state as part of a broader two-state solution to the decades-long Israel-Palestine conflict.

“Well, a lot of plans change with time,” he told reporters when he was asked if he was still committed to a plan similar to the one he spelled out in 2020 that described a possible Palestinian state.

That plan proposed a series of Palestinian enclaves surrounded by an enlarged Israel, did not have the Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem, but suggested a Palestinian capital on the outskirts of the city.

“A lot of death has occurred since I left and now came back. Now we are faced with a situation that’s different – in some ways better and in some ways worse. But we are faced with a very complex and difficult situation that we’ll solve,” he said.

On the likelihood of getting a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, Mr Trump said: “We are dealing with a lot of people, and we have steps to go yet, as you know, and maybe those steps go forward, and maybe they don’t.

“We’re dealing with a very complex group of people, situation and people, but we have the right man. We have the right leader of Israel. He’s done a great job.”

Mr Trump was also asked whether he should get the Nobel Peace Prize.

He said: “They will never give me a Nobel Peace Prize. It’s too bad. I deserve it, but they will never give it to me.”

Donald Trump has withdrawn the US from the UN Human Rights Council as he threatened that Iran would be ‘obliterated’ if it assassinates him.

The president has also stopped funding of the UN’s relief agency for Gaza.

The executive order means Mr Trump has reinstated policies that were in place during his first administration.

Joe Biden’s administration previously paused funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) after reports its staff were involved in the 7 October attacks.

Mr Trump also claimed today that Palestinians have “no alternative” but to leave Gaza, but that he doesn’t necessarily support Israelis settling in the enclave.

The US president also repeated previous suggestions that he would like to see Jordan and Egypt take Palestinians from Gaza.

The UN estimates that 60% of structures in the enclave have been damaged or destroyed, with almost all of the 2.3 million people in Gaza having been forced to leave their homes during Israel’s 15-month war to take shelter elsewhere in the territory.

Mr Trump’s executive orders and comments come as he is set to meet Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House – marking the first visit of a foreign leader during Mr Trump’s second term.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump also signed a “tough” directive on Iran because Tehran was “too close” to having a nuclear weapon.

Mr Trump said he would hold talks with his counterpart in Tehran, but warned he’s left “instructions” for his advisers that if Iran assassinated him, the US foe “would be obliterated”.

The US Justice Department announced federal charges in November that an Iranian plot to kill Mr Trump before the presidential election had been thwarted.

The department alleged Iranian officials had instructed Farhad Shakeri, 51, to focus on surveilling and ultimately assassinating Mr Trump.

Shakeri is still at large in Iran.

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China has, as expected, hit back at Donald Trump’s imposition of a 10% tariff on its exports to the United States.

Beijing has slapped levies of between 10-15% on a range of energy products that imports from the US.

But what has surprised observers – particularly when Mr Trump kicked off the trade war over the weekend – has been the president’s comparatively lenient treatment of China and, moreover, Beijing’s calm response.

While America’s two closest neighbours, Canada and Mexico, were hit with 25% tariffs (falling to 10% for Canadian energy exports) – since put on ice – China was merely hit with a 10% levy.

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That struck many observers as curious since China is regarded as a bigger trade adversary by the US than Mexico and Canada, with the latter traditionally seen as a close friend to the US, particularly through the pair’s involvement in the ‘Five Eyes’ security alliance along with Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

The big question raised by this is what motivated Mr Trump to do this.

The thinking is that the president was trying to bring China to the negotiating table and that, by initially hitting a close ally like Canada harder, he was trying to send a message to China’s leaders as to what they might face further down the line.

That impression was reinforced by Mr Trump’s overnight description of his 10% tariff on China as an “opening salvo”.

Why is China so calm?

That is not the only curiosity concerning this affair.

The other is the relatively calm response from Beijing. While Canada immediately responded with retaliatory measures and Mexico indicated that it would, China merely murmured in the first instance about taking “necessary countermeasures” and indicated that it would raise a complaint about the US with the World Trade Organisation.

Since then, Beijing has of course hit back with tariffs of its own on US energy imports, as well as launching an antitrust investigation into Google and adding the parent company of Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein on a blacklist of “unreliable entities”.

That gives Chinese president Xi Jinping something to take back off the table if, as expected, he speaks to Mr Trump in coming days as the pair seek to de-escalate this row.

But it all feels relatively restrained and raises the question of why China has responded in this way.

There is certainly a view in Beijing that, with Mr Trump’s first moves, China got off rather lightly compared with the Canadians and Mexicans.

That sanguine response may also indicate that Beijing knows it has other weapons it can deploy other than retaliatory measures.

Cards in China’s back pocket

For a start, China owns $769bn worth of US Treasury bonds. Dumping some of those aggressively – while hurting the Chinese – would push up America’s implied borrowing costs.

Alternatively, Beijing could allow its currency, the renminbi, to weaken on the foreign exchange markets, just as it did during Mr Trump’s first term of office.

Either way, Mr Trump’s latest measures are unlikely to change the way Chinese businesses operate, particularly the country’s manufacturers.

They have become accustomed over several years, dating back to Mr Trump’s first term, to aggression from the US. They have adapted the way they do business accordingly, for example by shipping a lot of their exports to the US via third countries, most notably Vietnam.

Chinese businesses relieved

Even Chinese companies specifically targeted by Mr Trump – the e-commerce giants Temu and Shein – may not be too badly affected.

They were both singled out as the president closed the so-called “de minimis” loophole, dating back to 1938, which allows goods worth less than $800 to be sent directly to US consumers without incurring import duties or rigorous customs inspections.

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This has been a constant thorn in the side of US retailers and its removal helps explain why, for example, shares of Walmart were on Monday spared the spanking meted out to other US stocks.

Yet Shein and Temu are said to be taking the news calmly.

They may even be calculating that this is a short-term squall that will soon blow over – or calculating that, such is the enormity of their buying power and supply chains, they can simply ship inventory elsewhere in the meantime or even just warehouse it.

It is also worth noting that Shein, having been banned by India in 2020, has just begun selling in the country again.

Overall, then, Chinese businesses have reacted with relief to what has happened. They know it could have been worse.

It explains why, even though the Chinese economy is presently misfiring, the authorities in Beijing have reacted relatively calmly to what Mr Trump has done.