The King's Speech.. Jordan does not wait for the region's calm to build its future

But the economy does not work in isolation from security. When His Majesty the King emphasizes that any threat to our northern borders or our water security is a threat to national security, this also has a direct economic dimension. The investor needs a safe country, the factory needs stable energy and water, trade needs working borders and corridors, and tourism needs stability. Therefore, what is spent on protecting borders, water, and confronting terrorism and drugs cannot be looked at separately from protecting the economy and its gains.

On the political side, Palestine remained present in the heart of the speech, but the message went beyond reaffirming the well-known Jordanian position. The warning was about the cost of letting crises accumulate until the temporary becomes permanent. This is also an economic lesson; unresolved conflicts do not remain in political maps, but their bill reaches food, energy, insurance, transportation, and investment prices, and may reach the citizen's home thousands of kilometers away. Therefore, peace and stability are not only political and humanitarian demands, but also conditions for development in the region.

Perhaps for this reason, the most important phrase to me in the speech was that Jordan seeks to build a different model: principled, open, and steadfast. In a rapidly changing world, reliability itself becomes a political and economic value. The country that maintains its positions, protects its security, builds its partnerships, and remains capable of dialogue and working with others, has a credit that does not always appear in economic indicators, but affects the decision of the investor, partner, and the country looking for someone they can rely on.

Jordan cannot change its location on the map, nor can it prevent crises from erupting around it, but it can decide how to deal with this geography. This is what I read in the King's speech: to protect our borders, water, and interests, and to remain steadfast in Palestine and our principles, but without being so preoccupied with today's crises that we postpone the economy of tomorrow. Countries do not always choose the circumstances around them, but they can choose what to build amidst these circumstances. And here specifically lies the story of Jordan and the opportunity before it.