By Humeyra Pamuk and Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON, Nov 3 (Reuters) – US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he made a deal with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Washington would stop $4 billion in annual funding to Israel after this year, but will still sell weapons to its close Middle East ally.
In a surprise announcement as US voters headed to the polls for midterm elections that will decide who controls Congress, Trump cast the move as partly meant to take away a “bad talking point” he said left-wing Democrats had used against his fellow Republicans over support for military assistance to Israel.
Trump did not provide details or explain how the funding would be stopped at the end of the year, given that the Memorandum of Understanding that provides $3.8 billion in US military aid to Israel each year does not expire until September 2028.
But some analysts suggested Trump’s declaration was an Election Day ploy.
Conversations have been under way on how Washington’s assistance to Israel would evolve beyond that date, and Netanyahu had already said he expects US aid to wind down over time.
Trump, however, appeared to signal that his mind was made up about what would mark a significant shift in US-Israel relations, even as the two countries remain in conflict with Iran more than eight months after jointly attacking the Islamic Republic.
Trump told Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” program that Israel no longer needed the funding and that some Democrats and left-wing politicians were using the US financial support to Israel to criticize Republicans. Opinion polls show that the US public’s overall support for Israel has declined mostly due to the Gaza war.
“Now, as far as paying Israel, Bibi Netanyahu and I have made a deal that we give Israel $4 billion a year, and we made a deal months ago that we’re stopping,” Trump said. “We’ve already agreed that by the end of this year we won’t be paying Israel. Now we’ll help Israel if they need it,” he said.
It was unclear why Trump chose to announce on Tuesday a deal he said he made months ago.
Israel’s future leadership is uncertain after an October 27 election in which Netanyahu — who has allied himself tightly to US Republicans — lost his governing majority but denied his opponents a clear path to unseat him. The election results paved the way for what are expected to be protracted negotiations over a new government.
Neither the White House nor Netanyahu’s office responded to Reuters’ requests for comment.
US public support for Israel has fallen since the Gaza war began in 2023, particularly among Democrats. A Quinnipiac University poll in June found 48% of voters and 66% of Democrats believe the US is too supportive of Israel, up from 16% and 20%, respectively, when the question was first asked in 2017.
Polls and nonpartisan analysts say that Democrats are likely to wrest control of the House of Representatives from Trump’s Republican Party in Tuesday’s elections. Control of the Senate remains uncertain.
CRITICISM OF ISRAEL
Support for Israel among Democratic voters has plummeted, candidates critical of Israel are winning Democratic primaries and even moderate lawmakers are increasingly willing to challenge decades of US support for Israel.
In a key battleground race, Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed is vying to represent Michigan in the Senate. El-Sayed, who would become the first Muslim to serve as a US senator, has opposed unconditional military aid to Israel, saying US funding should prioritize US citizens.
Trump said the left used the US funding as a “signal of unfairness” and that he could not allow that to happen. Underscoring the political nature of his comment, Trump specifically mentioned El-Sayed when explaining why he said Washington was stopping the money.
“Because they (Israel) don’t need it, and because why should we suffer the slings from lunatics like an El-Sayed when they don’t need it? It’s a bad, it’s a bad talking point,” Trump said.
Some members of Trump’s Make America Great Again movement have also become increasingly critical of Israel, accusing it of having misled the president — who campaigned in 2024 on a promise to avoid foreign military interventions — into believing Iran could easily be defeated in a war.
“The curious issue is timing,” said Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington. “Why did President Trump announce it on Election Day? And why did he announce it amidst speculation that a major joint US-Israeli military strike against Iran may be days away?”
Natan Sachs, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, said Trump was trying to explicitly deny the issue of aid to Israel as a way for critics to attack his policy by saying “it’s a moot point.”
Congress passed a law in 2020 authorizing the funding for Israel, but the Senate and House must still pass appropriations bills every year to distribute and release the funds.
Netanyahu said in an interview with an Israeli television channel in October: “If you think we’re going to continue receiving what I secured twice, and that’s tens of billions of dollars in American aid for the defense budget, prepare yourselves and get used to the fact that it won’t happen because America has changed.”
In anticipation of the possible reduction of US financial support in the coming years, the US House this past summer passed a defense bill provision that would deepen US-Israeli military technology ties. The provision of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, known as Section 219, envisions a much deeper defense cooperation between the two countries. Dozens of NGOs have called the idea “exceptionally dangerous” and urged US lawmakers to scrap it.
(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk, Doina Chiacu and Susan Heavey; Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle in Washington and Alexander Cormwell in Dubai; Writing by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Michelle Nichols and Paul Simao)
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