Trump Netanyahu News: US to End Israel Aid by Year-End
Meta description: Trump says the US will stop $4 billion a year in aid to Israel by the end of 2026, but Congress controls the money and Israel has not confirmed it.
President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the United States will stop paying Israel by the end of this year, telling a morning television audience that he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had already agreed months ago to end about $4 billion a year in American funding. The announcement arrived on the morning of the 2026 midterm elections, as voters were heading to polling places to decide control of Congress, and it immediately raised questions that Trump himself did not answer: which exact funding he meant, how a cutoff would work in practice, and whether the Israeli government had agreed to the same timetable. Trump presented the move as a settled understanding between close allies, describing Israel as a thriving country that no longer needed direct American payments, while adding that Washington would still help Israel if it needed assistance in the future.
The setting mattered as much as the words. Trump spoke on Fox News’ Fox & Friends programme on Tuesday morning, after midterm voting had begun, in an appearance that doubled as a final election-day pitch to his supporters. He framed the aid question in political terms as well as financial ones, pointing to criticism from Democrats who oppose American support for Israel and asking why Republicans should bear that criticism when, in his account, the payments were about to stop anyway. He singled out Michigan’s Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, a vocal critic of American military support for Israel and other countries, as an example of the kind of politician he said was using the payments as a talking point. The timing meant the announcement was heard not only as a foreign policy statement but as part of the closing argument of an election in which aid to Israel had become one of the most divisive issues in American politics.
What Trump Announced on Election Morning
According to reports of the interview, Trump said he and Netanyahu had made a deal under which the United States gives Israel $4 billion a year, and that the two leaders had agreed months ago that the payments would stop. He said the two countries had already reached that agreement, that Israel was comfortable with it, and that by the end of this year the United States would no longer be paying Israel. He also said Netanyahu himself had raised the idea, suggesting that it would be appropriate for Israel not to receive aid, and he described Israel as a very successful country that did not need the money. In Trump’s telling, the decision was therefore not imposed on an unwilling partner but welcomed by one: a wealthy ally stepping off American support because it could now stand on its own.
That framing is important because it runs against the usual way American aid to Israel is discussed in Washington, where the funding is normally treated as a long-term commitment rooted in a formal agreement between the two governments rather than a year-to-year favour. Trump did not describe a new treaty, a signed document, or a legislative step, and he did not say which budget lines or programmes would be affected. He spoke in broad terms about paying Israel, rather than distinguishing between military financing, missile defence cooperation, and other forms of security assistance that flow through different channels.
The $4 Billion Figure and the Agreement That Runs to 2028
The figure Trump used, $4 billion a year, is close to but not identical with the amount set out in the current formal arrangement between the United States and Israel. Under a ten-year memorandum of understanding signed in 2016, during the administration of President Barack Obama, the United States provides Israel with $3.8 billion a year in military aid, covering the fiscal years from 2019 through 2028. That agreement is the backbone of the modern aid relationship, and it does not expire at the end of 2026: it runs for two more years beyond the date Trump named. Reports of the interview noted that gap at once, because it raises an obvious question about how a cutoff at the end of this year would sit alongside an agreement that both countries signed and that is still in force.
The two governments have, however, already been talking about what comes after that agreement. Formal discussions began in May on a new security cooperation framework to replace the existing memorandum when it expires, with the focus so far reported to be on changing the shape of the assistance rather than ending it outright. That context makes Trump’s announcement harder to read in isolation: it could describe an acceleration of a transition that was already being negotiated, a decision to let the current arrangement lapse early, or a political statement intended to signal a direction of travel rather than a precise timetable. There is also a longer history behind the idea of Israel moving away from American aid: in January, Netanyahu was reported to have said that he wanted to taper American aid down to zero at some point in the future, an idea that has circulated in Israeli politics for years as the country’s economy has grown and its own defence industry has expanded.
Why Congress Matters to Any Cutoff
One of the clearest limits on Trump’s announcement is constitutional and practical: foreign aid is appropriated by Congress, and a president cannot simply end a stream of funding that Congress has authorised on his own say-so. Reports noting this point stressed that any modification or cancellation of foreign military financing would require congressional approval, and that the money is voted through by lawmakers rather than dispensed at the president’s discretion. That means that even if Trump and Netanyahu have discussed ending the payments, the timetable Trump named would still have to survive contact with the appropriations process, with the defence authorisation bills that set the framework for security assistance, and with the political mood of the next Congress — the very Congress voters were electing on the day he spoke.
No Confirmation Yet From Israel
As of Tuesday, there had been no confirmation of the move from Netanyahu’s office or from Israel’s foreign ministry, and the United States Department of State had not immediately responded to requests for comment. That silence is significant, because an agreement of this kind would normally be announced jointly or confirmed by both sides, particularly when it involves ending a decades-old funding relationship. Israeli defence officials were reported to still be working out what Trump’s announcement would mean in practice, which suggests that, whatever conversations may have taken place between the two leaders, the machinery of government in Jerusalem had not yet translated them into a settled position. The uncertainty is compounded by the fact that it was not immediately clear which exact funding Trump was discussing, since American support for Israel takes several forms, and a statement about no longer paying Israel could in principle cover the headline military financing figure, other security cooperation, or a combination of the two. Until either government publishes details, or Congress takes up the question, the announcement remains a presidential statement whose operational meaning is still to be defined.
Why the Announcement Landed on Election Day
The timing of the announcement cannot be separated from the election taking place around it. American aid to Israel, particularly in the context of the war in Gaza, has become one of the most contentious issues in the run-up to the midterms, dividing both parties and cutting across the usual lines of American politics. In July, the House of Representatives voted by 314 to 104 to defeat an amendment to a State Department spending bill that would have cut off aid to Israel, even though nearly half of House Democrats supported the measure — a sign of how far opinion inside the Democratic Party has moved. Polling has pointed in the same direction: a New York Times and Siena poll in May found that three-quarters of Democratic voters opposed American economic or military support for Israel, while a YouGov poll in April found that a majority of supporters of Trump’s own Make America Great Again movement favoured putting conditions on aid to Israel.
That cross-party unease gave Trump an unusual political opening, and his interview appeared designed to use it. By saying that aid would end anyway, and that Israel itself was comfortable with that outcome, he offered an answer to critics on both sides at once: to Democrats who want the payments stopped, he could point to a timetable; to supporters who value the alliance, he could point to Israel’s own agreement and to his promise of help if it were needed. The National, reporting the announcement, noted that it came as Trump sought to persuade voters to support his Republican Party in the midterms, and the interview’s focus on a Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan underlined the electoral framing. Whether voters heard it that way, or as a substantive policy change, will be one of the many questions the election results help to answer.
A Decade of Aid, and a Debate That Has Grown Louder
To understand why the announcement resonated, it helps to place it in the longer history of American support for Israel. Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of American foreign aid since 1946, a position built up over decades of military, economic, and diplomatic partnership, although in the most recent year Ukraine has been the largest yearly beneficiary, receiving $6.75 billion in 2025. The current ten-year memorandum, with its $3.8 billion annual figure, was designed to give both countries predictability: Israel could plan its defence procurement over a decade, and American manufacturers could plan production, while Washington retained a close security partnership with its ally in a volatile region. That predictability is precisely what a sudden end date would disrupt, and it is why defence planners in both countries will want far more detail than a television interview can provide.
What Happens Next
The immediate next steps are therefore more about clarification than about implementation. The first question is whether Netanyahu’s office or the Israeli government confirms that an agreement to end payments by the end of the year exists, and if so, in what terms. The second is whether the State Department or the White House publishes any detail about which funding streams are covered and what happens to commitments already made for equipment and joint programmes. The third, and in many ways the most decisive, is what Congress does: the voters elected on Tuesday will shape the next Congress, and that Congress will have to decide whether to appropriate the money, to legislate a phased end, or to leave the current arrangement in place until the memorandum expires in 2028.
Source: The Guardian