Trump Says U.S. Will Stop $4 Billion a Year in Military Aid to Israel, Surprising Israeli Officials

WASHINGTON —

President Donald Trump said Nov. 3 that the United States will stop giving Israel about $4 billion in yearly military aid, telling Fox News in a phone interview on the morning of the U.S. midterm elections that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to the move, the Associated Press and the Times of Israel reported.

“Look, we give them $4 billion of things and money, and they don't need it,” Trump said, according to the AP. He said Netanyahu had raised the idea and that the two leaders had been “talking about it for a couple of years because it's a lot of money.” The AP reported the aid would end starting in 2027 while the United States keeps selling weapons to Israel. The Times of Israel quoted Trump saying, “By the end of this year, we won't be paying Israel,” and, “They've been a great ally, and we've been the greatest of all allies.”

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Trump said aid to Israel had become a campaign talking point, naming Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, the AP reported. “If they did need it, I would say keep it going. But we reached an agreement on that,” he said, according to the Times of Israel.

In Jerusalem, the news caught officials off guard. Finance Ministry officials said they knew of the plan to end aid but were surprised it would take effect right away, and that no formal document had come from the Prime Minister's Office, the Times of Israel reported, citing Walla. A senior defense official told Israel's public broadcaster Kan, “We did not expect this announcement, certainly not today.” Netanyahu's office had no immediate comment, both outlets reported.

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Gadi Eisenkot, chairman of the Yashar party, said the defense establishment learning of the change through the media showed that Netanyahu “can no longer be trusted and must be replaced,” the Times of Israel reported.

Netanyahu has spoken before about ending U.S. aid, but gradually. In a June letter to a U.S. congressman he wrote that Israel should “move from aid recipient to partner,” and in May he told CBS he wanted the support to reach “zero,” according to the Times of Israel. Current U.S. military aid comes under a 10-year memorandum of understanding that began in 2019 and provides about $3.8 billion a year. The Council on Foreign Relations counts more than $300 billion in U.S. aid to Israel since 1948, adjusted for inflation, the paper reported.

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What we don't know yet: Whether the aid will stop at the end of 2026, as the Times of Israel quoted Trump, or starting in 2027, as the AP reported. The Times of Israel said Trump's claim of an immediate end is almost certainly not accurate because the current agreement still runs, though the paper gave different end dates for it. No written agreement between the two governments has been made public, and Netanyahu's office had not commented when this story was written.