An Election Day announcement on Fox News
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the United States will stop giving Israel about $4 billion a year in aid by the end of 2026, under what he described as a deal with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Trump made the comments in a phone interview on Fox News' Fox & Friends on the morning of November 3, as Americans voted in the midterm elections. It was not a post on Truth Social.
Trump said he and Netanyahu agreed months ago to end the payments, that Netanyahu himself raised the idea, and that Israel has become a thriving country that no longer needs the money. He told host Brian Kilmeade the aid is ending because "they don't need it," while adding that the U.S. would still help Israel if needed and calling it a great ally.
When the hosts pressed him on whether he meant military aid or direct funding, Trump said it could be described either way.
What the aid is
U.S. security aid to Israel has been set through 10-year memorandums of understanding since the Clinton administration. The current agreement, signed under President Obama, provides $3.8 billion a year in military aid and runs through the 2028 fiscal year. Israel generally uses the money to buy American-made weapons.
That timeline raises questions about how quickly the aid could actually stop. The memorandum isn't legally binding, but Congress appropriates the funding each year, and several analysts noted the president can't end appropriated aid on his own.
Netanyahu has signaled interest in moving away from the aid. In January he said he wanted to taper it off over the next decade, and in June he wrote to a U.S. congressman that it was time for Israel to shift from aid recipient to partner. Talks on what comes after 2028 were already underway.
Reactions and the politics
In the U.S., Trump tied the decision partly to the midterms. He pointed to Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, a critic of U.S. support for Israel, and said the aid had become a talking point Republicans no longer needed to defend. Aid to Israel has been a flashpoint in both parties this year. In July, the House defeated an amendment to cut it off, though nearly half of Democrats voted for it. Some critics called the timing of the announcement political.
In Israel, Netanyahu's office and foreign minister had not confirmed the move as of Tuesday, and Hebrew media reported Finance Ministry officials were caught by surprise. Opposition leaders criticized Netanyahu. Yair Golan, head of the Democrats party, called it a major failure at a time when Israel needs to restock weapons and air defenses, and Gadi Eisenkot demanded answers from the prime minister.
Supporters of the move, including Netanyahu's own past statements, frame it as Israel becoming a stronger, more self-reliant partner that can buy American weapons with its own funds. Opponents in Israel argue it weakens the country's security, while some U.S. critics say ending aid alone doesn't address their concerns about weapons sales.
It remains unclear how the change would work in practice, whether Congress will act, and what a new arrangement after 2028 would look like.