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Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, the US has been among the major donors to the Palestinian Authority (PA), created to manage limited self-governance in parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The goal of the aid was to stimulate economic growth in Palestinian territories and build public support for negotiations with Israel.

In 2011, when Washington threatened to cut off the aid because the PA was negotiating a unity government with Hamas ‒ considered a terrorist group by both the US and Israel ‒ the PA said it was willing to give up the funding.

"Palestinians need American money, but if they use it as a way of pressuring us, we are ready to relinquish that aid," a spokesman for PA President Mahmoud Abbas said at the time.

"Jerusalem is not for sale, neither for gold nor for silver," Nabil Abu Rudainah said on Wednesday. He added: "If the United States is keen about peace and about its interests, it must abide by that." Hanan Ashrawi, a senior executive of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said that Palestinians "will not be blackmailed."

"His confused and contradictory positions on Iranians are nothing new," Bahram Ghasemi said in a statement Tuesday, as Trump was shooting offangry tweets, seemingly to all and sundry.

"Instead of wasting his time on posting useless and insulting tweets about other nations and countries, Trump had better address his country's domestic affairs and issues such as the daily killings of dozens of people in armed clashes and shootings in various US states as well as the existence of millions of homeless and hungry [people] in his own country."
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Trump's tweets were already being criticized by Hamid Baeidinejad, Iran's ambassador to the UK, who also highlighted the United States' domestic problems.

"Trump after his earlier insult in calling the Iranian nation 'terrorists,' has now called Iranians as 'hungry for food.' Very bad to remind him that 1 out of 8, meaning 42 million people including 13 million children and 5 million seniors, are hungry in the US today," the Iranian diplomat tweeted Monday.

"More than 3 months after storm in Puerto Rico, half of the people still do not have access to electricity," he added. "Mr. Trump should be encouraged to work harder to solve the American people's problems rather than focusing on problems of other nations."