President Donald Trump said that about $4 billion in annual US military aid to Israel will end this year under a deal with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Speaking in an interview with Fox News on the day of the US midterm elections, Trump said the two leaders had made a deal months ago and that Israel no longer needs the assistance. “So it’s just a wasted thing because we’ve already agreed that by the end of this year, we won’t be paying Israel,” he said.
The move would end the aid nearly two years before the current agreement expires. The current 10-year memorandum of understanding, signed toward the end of the Obama administration, provides Israel $3.8 billion a year, including $3.3 billion in Foreign Military Financing used mainly to buy US-made defense equipment. It is set to expire at the end of fiscal year 2028.
Trump did not specify which forms of aid would end or how. He linked the decision to domestic politics, saying Republicans should not “suffer the slings” from Democratic candidates over the issue, and said Netanyahu had raised it.
Memorandums of understanding are not legally binding, but Congress codified the annual financing levels in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021.
Under the current terms, Israel must spend 92 percent of its Foreign Military Financing on US-made products in 2026 and 2027, and all of it in 2028. US-Israeli industrial cooperation has expanded under the arrangement, including a Raytheon-Rafael plant in Arkansas that delivered its first US-made Tamir interceptor to Israel in October.
Two sources at Israel’s Finance Ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity, told ABC News they were surprised by the remarks, with one noting that Israel’s future annual budget had already been drafted based on the current agreement. Netanyahu’s office and Israel’s Defense Ministry did not immediately comment.
Gadi Eisenkot, whose opposition bloc won 48 seats in last week’s Israeli election, said in a statement that Israel’s security establishment was learning of the change through the media. “We can no longer rely on him and must replace him,” Eisenkot said of Netanyahu.
Netanyahu has previously called for a phased end to US military aid in favor of joint investments. The announcement comes amid the US-Israeli war with Iran, on which US military spending has surged past $47 billion.
Final results of last week’s Knesset election showed Netanyahu’s bloc with 53 seats, short of the 61 needed for a majority, with no coalition yet formed.
