Maine’s congressional delegation on Wednesday dismissed President Donald Trump’s plan for the United States to force Palestinians to move out of Gaza and redevelop the oceanside strip of land that’s long been the focus of conflict in the Middle East.

The delegation expressed concerns about deploying U.S. troops in the Middle East — a move that would likely be necessary to execute Trump’s vision — and questioned the seriousness of the proposal.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins said in an interview Wednesday that Trump’s plan would be unworkable and wondered whether it was intended to create leverage in negotiations, similar to the president’s approach to tariffs.

“I doubt that it is workable, and I am very wary of the possibility that U.S. troops might be present in Gaza,” Collins told the Press Herald. “I’m surprised because President Trump previously pushed for troop withdrawals from the Middle East. I wonder if this is an aggressive negotiating tactic rather than a plan that the president plans to pursue, since we have seen that pattern in recent days.”

During a news conference Tuesday evening at the White House alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said he wants to relocate the nearly 2 million Palestinian residents of Gaza to the neighboring countries of Egypt and Jordan, citing the destruction of the region by Israel’s bombing in response to the October 2023 attacks by Hamas.

Trump said he wants the United States to take control of the roughly 140 square-mile Gaza Strip, which borders the Mediterranean Sea, and turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East.” Trump did not cite any authority to occupy Gaza or displace Palestinians, which both global allies and adversaries quickly argued would violate international law.

“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it,” Trump said. “We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out, create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area.”

Trump has also publicly mused about annexing Canada and making it the 51st state, buying Greenland, and taking over the Panama Canal.

Trump’s comments added to the confusion that has marked his first two weeks in office, which has featured a series of executive orders, public pronouncements and legally questionable moves to cut federal spending and hand power to technology billionaire Elon Musk to shut down agencies and reduce the federal workforce.

Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, said Trump’s Gaza plan would have “serious and dangerous national security implications.”

“While it is too soon to see how serious this proposal is, the concept of an expansionist American takeover of Gaza would have serious implications,” King said in a written statement. “It would be a direct engagement of American taxpayer dollars and personnel, displace the Palestinian people from their homeland, and foment anti-American sentiment with serious and dangerous national security implications.”

Rep. Jared Golden, D-2nd District, said he’s more interested in seeing concrete actions from Trump to secure the release of the remaining hostages still being held by Hamas. The former combat veteran said neither he nor Americans want U.S. troops on the ground in Gaza.

“Talk is cheap, so we should pay attention to what President Trump actually does,” Golden said. “What I want to see is him making a deal to secure the release of all the remaining hostages — especially the Americans still in Hamas captivity.

“But I am confident that neither my constituents nor the American people as a whole want to put our men and women in uniform on the ground in Gaza. When it comes to nation-building, what I’m most focused on is America.”

Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-1st District, strongly condemned the ideas as “brazen and inflammatory.”

“The president’s belief that the United States should ‘take over’ Gaza is the kind of rhetoric that could derail the current ceasefire agreement and reignite violence in the region,” Pingree said in a written statement.

“It was sickening enough to hear the president say that the people of Gaza — who have endured unimaginable suffering and atrocities — would be ‘better off’ living somewhere else. To suggest that the United States should escalate the displacement of whole communities to create the ‘Riviera of the Middle East,’ rather than facilitate the critical aid needed for Gaza to rebuild, is as absurd as it is dangerous,” she continued.

“After more than a year of horrifying death and destruction, during which tens of thousands of innocent people lost their lives, the recent ceasefire offers a glimmer of hope — for Palestinians, for Israelis, and for everyone who believes that a real, lasting peace and a two-state solution are still possible. Reckless rhetoric like this will only heighten the risk of further violence, reignite the possibility of a wider regional war, and ultimately lead to more tragedy and trauma for the Palestinian people.”

Collins also pointed out that the king of Jordan — a nation that has already received many displaced Palestinians — will be in Washington next week.

“I imagine he will have a lot of say about this plan,” she said.