President Donald Trump said the United States would stop annual payments to Israel after 2026, a claim that would bring the cutoff ahead of a U.S.-Israel funding agreement running through fiscal 2028.
In a telephone interview with Fox & Friends on Tuesday, Nov. 3, Trump said Netanyahu had raised ending the payments. Trump described the annual assistance as $4 billion and said Israel could continue buying U.S. weapons. He also said Washington could help if Israel needed it.
“We’ve already agreed that by the end of this year we won’t be paying Israel. Now we’ll help Israel if they need it,” Trump said.
The Associated Press reported that Netanyahu’s office did not immediately comment. Trump argued that ending the payments would remove a political issue Democrats use against Republicans. He did not identify whether his statement covered military financing, missile defense or both.
The 2016 U.S.-Israel memorandum of understanding covers fiscal years 2019 through 2028. It sets yearly funding levels of $500 million for cooperative missile-defense programs and $3.3 billion for Foreign Military Financing. Together, those amounts total $38 billion over 10 years, subject to congressional appropriations and the availability of funds.
The memorandum’s figures add up to $3.8 billion per year, compared with Trump’s rounded $4 billion description. A cutoff after 2026 would come before the agreement’s final fiscal year. The Jerusalem Post reported that Trump did not lay out detailed steps for implementing the change.
In a January interview with The Economist, Netanyahu said he wanted U.S. military aid to phase out over 10 years.
