President Donald Trump says the roughly $4 billion a year in US military aid to Israel will stop at the end of 2026. He also says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed it. Netanyahu’s office declined to comment, and no Israeli official has confirmed a deal.
The claim matters well beyond Israel, which has received more US foreign aid than any other country since World War II, the Congressional Research Service says. Israel military aid rests on a 10-year agreement that runs to September 2028, and Congress appropriates the money. Trump did not say how he would end it early. None of the reporting we read describes a legal step to do so.
What Trump said on Fox & Friends
Trump spoke by phone to Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” on the morning of Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 3. “We were giving them $4 billion, we are, but it gets cut off at the end of the year,” he said, according to Fox News’ own report.
He said the two leaders “made a deal months ago that we’re stopping.” He added, “we’ve already agreed that by the end of this year, we won’t be paying Israel,” ABC News reported. On who raised it, he said: “I was approached by Bibi Netanyahu. He brought it up.”
Trump gave few details. “You can consider it barter. You can consider military aid or cash,” he told Fox. Israel “can buy whatever they want” in American weapons, he said, and the Jerusalem Post quoted him adding, “Now we’ll help Israel if they need it.” Pressed on whether he meant equipment or money, he did not say, ABC reported.
Israel has not confirmed a deal
Everything about the agreement so far comes from Trump. Netanyahu’s office declined to comment on Tuesday, NBC News reported.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry referred questions to the Prime Minister’s Office, the Jerusalem Post said. Two Finance Ministry sources told ABC they were surprised. One said officials had drafted next year’s budget under the current agreement.
Netanyahu has said he wants to end the aid, but on a slower clock. In January he said he hoped to “taper off” US military aid over the next decade, NBC reported. On CBS’s “60 Minutes” in May, he said, “I want to draw down to zero the American financial support.”
He added, “I don’t want to wait for the next Congress,” Reuters reported. In a June 1 letter to Rep. Marlin Stutzman, he backed moving “from aid to partnership,” JNS reported.
A 10-year taper and a cutoff in eight weeks are very different plans. Netanyahu is also still trying to form a government after last month’s inconclusive election. His main rival, Gadi Eisenkot, said, “He can no longer be trusted, and he must be replaced,” NBC reported. Yair Golan of the left-wing Democrats party said a halt in aid “deals a severe blow to Israel’s security.”
The $3.8 billion comes from a 2016 deal and Congress
The “$4 billion” is close to the figure in the current memorandum of understanding. US and Israeli officials signed it on Sept. 14, 2016, to cover fiscal years 2019 to 2028.
The US pledged $38 billion, “subject to congressional appropriation,” according to the Congressional Research Service. That is $3.3 billion a year in Foreign Military Financing grants plus $500 million for missile defense, or $3.8 billion a year.
CRS notes that these memorandums “are not legally binding agreements like treaties,” so a president can walk away from one. The spending is a different matter. The fiscal 2021 defense law authorizes “not less than” $3.3 billion a year in grants to Israel through 2028. CRS says appropriators “have matched or exceeded that authorization level each year.” Al Jazeera’s White House correspondent, Kimberly Halkett, said Trump “can’t end this aid unilaterally,” the network reported.
The calendar also cuts against “the end of the year.” Fiscal 2027 began on Oct. 1. Even a cutoff on Dec. 31 would leave two fiscal years of the memorandum, worth about $7.6 billion by our count.
Most of that money never leaves the US. Israel must spend 92% of its grant on American-made products in 2026 and 2027, and all of it in 2028, ABC reported. In practice the program pays US companies for Israel’s orders.
Wartime spending has dwarfed the memorandum since the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, 2023, because Congress passed emergency aid on top of it. A Costs of War paper by William Hartung counted $21.7 billion in US military aid to Israel in the two years after the attack.
Why Trump tied it to Abdul El-Sayed
Trump framed the cutoff as politics as much as policy. “Why should we suffer the slings from lunatics like an El-Sayed when they don’t need it?” he said, per Fox. “It’s a bad talking point.” Abdul El-Sayed, the Democrat running for Michigan’s open Senate seat, had criticized unconditional military aid to Israel. He won that race hours after Trump spoke.
Voters have moved. In a Quinnipiac poll taken June 18 to 22, 48% of registered voters said the US is “too supportive” of Israel.
That is the highest share since Quinnipiac began asking in 2017, and it included 66% of Democrats. Congress has not moved as far. A House amendment from Rep. Thomas Massie to cut off aid to Israel failed 314 to 104 in July, Al Jazeera reported.
Analysts doubt the Dec. 31 deadline
Analysts doubt Trump’s timeline. Thomas Warrick of the Atlantic Council told Al Jazeera that several missile defense and counter-drone programs can’t easily move to straight arms sales. He expects the aid to end “during 2027. But not by the end of 2026.”
Others expect the money to survive under another name. “We’re obviously not going to be zeroing out aid,” Matt Duss of the Center for International Policy told Mother Jones. He expects lawmakers to recast the money as joint defense partnerships, with “even less congressional oversight.” Section 219 of the House’s fiscal 2027 defense bill would create a US-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative, Al Jazeera reported.
Congress gets the next move. Lawmakers return on Nov. 9 with a Dec. 11 government funding deadline.
Democrats take control of both chambers on Jan. 3, and any spending law that drops the money for Israel would be the first proof of Trump’s claim.
