Even better than real estate is Trump’s ability to spin a tall tale

To the man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And to the real estate developer in the White House, everything looks like a beachfront site for hotels and casinos.

It’s not just Gaza that receives such treatment. Last year, President Donald Trump told his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky that the coastal city of Odesa would be ideal for real estate development. In his first term, he thought he could end the decades-long stalemate between the US and North Korea by tempting Kim Jong-un to surrender his nuclear weapons in exchange for hotels and waterside developments.

Credit: Simon Letch

The galling difference with Gaza is that Trump’s latest thought bubble involves Palestinians leaving their homeland first. Somehow, the sort of horror that would be required to achieve this end goal is left vague, to be gleaned from his failure to rule out using US military force to realise his vision of “owning” Gaza while it is “cleaned out”.

This casual ambiguity over what would amount to ethnic cleansing is a fair reflection of how unmoored things now are. Of how people, especially in Gaza, can be so glibly reduced to chattels with no history, no identity, no connection to their land. At least no connection as deep as Trump’s connection to real estate.

All this, to quote a pro-Israeli Trump fundraiser speaking to The Wall Street Journal, is “insane”. It is also incoherent. What, for example, does it mean when Trump says his proposal “doesn’t mean anything about a two-state or one-state or any other state” solution? If the clearance of Gaza – by whatever method – means anything at all, it undoubtedly means the vanishing prospect of a Palestinian state, and with that, the annihilation of any two-state solution. Is Trump simply refusing to acknowledge this to maintain some plausible deniability, or does he simply not understand the implications of his own policy?

On that point, let’s consider this week’s other pyrotechnic display: tariffs. A few days ago we stared into the economic abyss of a trade war when Trump announced new tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada, the last two on bizarre non-economic pretexts. None can claim to be taken by surprise: tariffs – “the most beautiful word in the dictionary” – were probably the most central plank of his re-election campaign. And yet, to take Trump’s words seriously is to conclude he doesn’t actually know what a tariff is.

“Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens” was his formulation on Inauguration Day. But of course, it is American companies importing goods from overseas that would be paying any tariffs, not foreign companies, and American consumers will then cover that extra cost. Meanwhile, those same Americans find it harder to sell their goods overseas once other countries retaliate with tariffs of their own. The end result: stuff gets more expensive for Americans.

Ultimately, after stock market ructions delivered their verdict of the economic consequences, crisis was forestalled once Mexico and Canada struck an agreement with Trump to pause these tariffs for a month. It’s not terribly clear if the benefits for the US in these agreements amount to much, or couldn’t have been achieved some other way. As one political scientist from Montreal’s McGill University mused, “would you threaten to burn down the house of your friendly neighbour to get some salt or sugar from them?”

The answer really depends on how much you like a story, and Trump seems to love them almost as much as waterside real estate. His whole candidacy was a story: the New York billionaire who chose to be an outsider, to fight for those who have been forgotten. His tribulations are a story: of his opponents within and outside of the deep state persecuting him because he threatens the established order. His policies are a story: of Mexico paying for walls, of tariffs coming to the rescue of the working class. And in a contest that pits facts and definitions against stories, stories will win every time.

Trump’s current story is apparently one of constant, big, disruptive action. It’s abolishing citizenship by birthright one day. It’s slashing through diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives the next. It’s buying Greenland and shutting down America’s foreign aid arm. Then tariffs, then Gaza, all before you’ve drawn breath. These things are not necessarily achieved – indeed they quite often do not happen the way they are initially sold, if at all – tied down in endless legal challenges, “paused” at the last minute, or otherwise completely unrealisable. But none of that matters so much as long as the story has been told.

Trump’s Gaza intervention fits within this broad trend. It seems very unlikely to materialise, having already been rejected by US allies and the Arab countries whose co-operation would be necessary. But it tells the story – much loved among his voter base – of a president who ends wars by approaching them like a businessman. In this vision, Trump is the outsider who doesn’t benefit financially from ongoing war like corrupt Washington politicians. He recognises war is expensive and bad for business (or at least real estate) and therefore has no patience for it. To end a war by building something is therefore the ultimate fulfilment of his promise.

But the thing about stories, unlike facts, is they can be revised. The big hole in this one was Trump leaving open the possibility of US military involvement – the kind of foreign entanglement that undermines his America-first isolationism. Which is almost certainly why the White House itself is now redrafting on the run, speaking as though the government money and military involvement isn’t part of the plan; as though we’d all somehow just got it wrong. Narrative restored. Chaos sown.

Meanwhile, unpredictable spin-off stories emerge. On Wednesday, as Trump was outlining his plan, the Israeli prime minister purred about the vision and courage it entailed. Far-right members of Netanyahu’s rickety coalition responded with glee: “Great idea” declared Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, pledging to work on an “operational plan for implementation”. This cohort plainly has no interest in a two-state solution and has long wanted to see Palestinians off to Sinai, the Congo – anywhere, really.

Trump’s plan was basically theirs. Now, it’s so toxic even the White House doesn’t embrace it. In the process, the true meaning of these far-right designs has been exposed to the world.

Did Trump author that? Who knows? Perhaps not even Trump himself.

Waleed Aly is a regular columnist.

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