Trump Says He and Netanyahu Agreed to End $4 Billion in Annual US Aid, Calling It a Favor to Them Both
In a Fox News interview, Trump said he and Netanyahu struck a deal months ago to stop the $4 billion the US sends Israel each year starting in 2027, framing it as something Israel no longer needs and a way to take away a Democratic campaign talking point, even though ending congressionally appropriated aid is not entirely his to decide.
President Trump said in a Fox News interview on Tuesday that he and Prime Minister Netanyahu agreed months ago to end the roughly four billion dollars in annual US aid to Israel, with the cutoff taking effect at the start of 2027. He said Netanyahu had raised the idea himself, that the two of them had been discussing it for a couple of years, and that Israel was fine with the arrangement. Arms sales to Israel would continue; only the annual aid package would stop.
Trump gave two reasons for the move. The first was that Israel, in his telling, no longer needs the money and that four billion dollars a year is a large sum for the United States to keep spending. The second was more directly political: he said US aid to Israel has become a line Democratic candidates use against Washington's support for the country, naming Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed as an example of the attack he wants to take off the table before next year's midterms.
What Trump described as a settled deal is not entirely his to make. The aid is appropriated by Congress, not the executive branch, which means ending it requires legislation Trump cannot simply order into existence, and most assessments of the announcement treat an actual cutoff by the end of 2026 as unlikely regardless of what Trump and Netanyahu discussed.
The timing lands awkwardly for Netanyahu regardless of how the funding question resolves. His bloc is still negotiating from 53 seats with no clear path to 61, and a prime minister trying to hold a coalition together now has to explain an aid cutoff he reportedly proposed himself, at the exact moment his own hold on power is the most uncertain it has been in years.
