President Donald Trump used an Election Day morning call into “Fox & Friends” to drop this casually: the roughly $4 billion a year the United States sends Israel gets cut off at the end of this year, under a deal he says he made with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu months ago.
Trump on Fox and Friends: US aid to Israel gets cut off at the end of the year
The hosts had to stop him and ask if they heard it right. Trump said the money counts any way you define it, barter, military aid or cash, and that Netanyahu brought the idea up himself, because the aid had become a favorite talking point for the left. He named Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who campaigns on the number.
We were giving them $4 billion. It gets cut off at the end of the year. Why? Because they don’t need it.
President Donald Trump, on “Fox & Friends”
Here is the part that is not settled. The standing deal is a 2016 memorandum that pays Israel $3.8 billion a year through 2028, and Congress controls that money. Reuters reported it is not clear which funding Trump means or how a cutoff this year would work, and Netanyahu’s office had no immediate comment.
The direction is not new from Netanyahu’s side. In May he said he hoped to wean Israel off US military support within a decade. Trump just moved the timeline up by about ten years, on live morning TV, on the day the country votes.
Trump added that America will still help Israel if it ever actually needs it. What changes, if this holds, is the automatic check: the largest aid package in the budget stops being automatic.