WASHINGTON — The United States will stop providing $4 billion in aid each year to Israel in 2027 but will sell arms to its closest ally in the Middle East, President Donald Trump said on Tuesday.
The Republican president told Fox News Channel during a phone call on Election Day for the midterms that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had approached him about the idea and that they have been talking about it for a couple of years.
Trump said Israel doesn't need the aid and it's a lot of money for the U.S. to spend. But Trump also said that U.S. aid to Israel has become a Democratic talking point for candidates such as Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, a vocal critic of Israel.
Even far-right conservatives, who have supported Trump in the past, have taken issue with U.S. support for Israel, with prominent commentators like Tucker Carlson openly questioning the value of the relationship.
“You can consider it barter. You can consider military aid or cash,” Trump said. “Look, we give them $4 billion of things and money, and they don’t need it. And I was approached by Bibi Netanyahu, and we’ve been talking about it for a couple of years because it’s a lot of money.”
But if Trump intended the announcement to make a last-ditch effort to sway midterm votes, analysts said it likely would not work.
“It's an open question if this was about politics, but it isn't going to change Republican voters, and it certainly isn't going to change Democratic voters,” said David Schenker, who served as Trump's top diplomat for the Middle East in his first term and is now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Israeli opposition leaders want to hear from Netanyahu
There was no immediate comment from Netanyahu’s office. But at least some of his political opponents were cautious.
His chief rival, Gadi Eisenkot, called on the prime minister, who after several hours had yet to comment publicly on Trump’s announcement, to speak to the possibly radical change in U.S.-Israeli relations.
“The fact that Israel’s defense establishment is learning of a shift in our strategic relationship through the media, at the same time as the Israeli public, shows just how dangerous Benjamin Netanyahu’s conduct is,” Eisenkot, a former military chief, said in a statement.
Yair Golan, a leader in Israel’s opposition bloc, said an end to U.S. military aid would deal a “severe blow to Israel’s security” at a time when the country is fighting wars on multiple fronts.
“The burden of funding defense needs at such a critical juncture will fall entirely upon the Israeli public,” Golan, a former deputy military chief, said in a statement.
Tens of billions of dollars have gone to Israel
The United States has sent tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Israel over the last few years.
In 2016, President Barack Obama, a Democrat, signed an unprecedented security agreement with Israel to give its military $38 billion over 10 years, amounting to $3.8 billion a year. Under the agreement, Israel's ability to spend part of the funds on Israeli military products was to be phased out and eventually all of the money would be spent on American military industries.
Netanyahu has talked about the need to wean Israel off the aid in the past and has said that the American aid would end at some point.
He told The Economist in January that he wanted to “taper off” U.S. military aid in the next 10 years and that such a change was “in the works.”
But Congress will have a large say in what happens.
Behind the scenes, there have been discussions about whether the U.S.-Israel arrangement should be restructured in the long term into one that’s more of a partnership of the two countries' defense tech and weapons manufacturing industries.
The 2027 National Defense Authorization Act includes a provision that would expand U.S.-Israeli cooperation on the development of new defense technology and identify opportunities to integrate Israeli defense technology into the U.S. military. The NDAA has not yet been approved by Congress.
But there has been some concern from the Israeli side that such a shift in the relationship could result in the Israelis giving up their intellectual property but still face constraints by the U.S., according to a person who is familiar with the diplomatic discussions but was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile, some critics, including Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, have criticized the provision in the NDAA. Khanna said such integration between the militaries would lead to the U.S. losing sovereignty.
Trump says critics can easily target the $4 billion payment
The optics of the aid had also become an issue, according to Trump, who singled out El-Sayed for using it as a talking point.
“The left uses the $4 billion payment — that everybody knows about, it’s no secret — as a signal of unfairness,” Trump said Tuesday on Fox. “And we can’t allow that to happen. I don’t like that, because it’s too easy. It’s almost too easy a target. And Bibi and I have been talking, and we’ve agreed. He was very understanding of it.”
Phasing out direct military and economic aid to Israel has long been a subject of debate in both countries and has gained traction in the last several years. “This has been coming for a long time,” said Schenker.
There are several issues that complicate it, though, not least of which are obligations the U.S. has to Israel under the terms of the Camp David peace accords with Egypt, which require the United States to support Israel and Egypt with security assistance.
In addition, much of the assistance the U.S. provides Israel comes in the form of foreign military financing, or FMF, that gives Israel the money but requires it to spend the money on American-produced weaponry, meaning the funds are plowed back into the U.S. economy.
Unless Israel plans to spend the same amount on purchasing American materiel, U.S. defense contractors may see an impact.
In addition, even if aid were to be suddenly cut off, there would still be many years of previous purchases in the pipeline waiting to be delivered. Most purchases take years from the sale to construction and then delivery.
“The real question for me is whether weapons deliveries will be affected,” Schenker said. “Will Israel be prioritized?”
There was more aid after the Gaza war started
An academic study published last year showed the U.S. under the administrations of President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and Trump provided at least $21.7 billion in military assistance to Israel after the start of the Gaza war in 2023. The study was published on the second anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in Israel that provoked the conflict.
Another study, also published last year by the Costs of War project at Brown University's Watson School of International and Public Affairs, said the U.S. had spent roughly $10 billion more on security aid and operations in the broader Middle East in the previous two years.
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Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed.