Trump’s Election Day surprise: End US aid to Israel. But other strong financial ties would remain.
PolitiFact ·
On Election Day, President Donald Trump said the U.S. is moving toward ending nearly $4 billion in annual aid it gives Israel, saying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to the plan months ago.
“Israel is a very thriving country,” Trump said while calling in to “ Fox & Friends” on Nov. 3. “They don’t need it. If they did need it, I would say keep it going. But Bibi Netanyahu, we reached an agreement on that. … He said, ‘I think it would be appropriate if we do not receive aid.’ Because he understands that this is one of their points of contention.”
If the phaseout is implemented, it would end one major source of U.S. support to Israel, but not all of them. Israel would still be able to buy U.S. weapons with its own money and has billions in outstanding U.S. loan guarantees. And U.S. lawmakers are advancing a bill that would create closer ties between the two countries’ military and technology sectors.
Trump’s statement comes amid growing concern among many Americans about Israel’s war against Hamas and the United States’ material support of it. The Chicago Council on Global Affairs polling in July found that about 56% of Americans say U.S. military aid to Israel should be either decreased or stopped, up considerably from 2012 when a combined 38% said the same.
Trump drew a connection between the proposed U.S. phaseout and the 2026 midterm elections by citing criticism of the aid by Michigan Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed . Trump said ending aid would take away “the best talking point that these lunatics have on the left,” singling out El-Sayed.
U.S.-Israel ties have become a potent issue for critics of both country’s leaders. In Israel’s late October elections, Netanyahu fell short of a majority.
Under an existing agreement, the $3.8 billion in U.S. annual aid to Israel is not slated to stop until the end of fiscal year 2028. In the “Fox & Friends” interview, Trump said it would stop by the end of this year, but it was unclear what that would mean for the remaining financial commitment. The White House did not immediately respond to PolitiFact’s request for more information.
The funding is from a 10-year, $38 billion memorandum of understanding the two countries signed in 2016 covering fiscal years 2019 through 2028. The agreement included several priorities, including updating the Israeli air fleet and maintaining its missile defense system.
That amount is $800 million more than the previous agreement negotiated under the George W. Bush administration, said Taxpayers for Common Sense policy analyst Gabe Murphy.
The U.S. has given additional billions of dollars since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, including a $26 billion supplemental agreement in 2024 that included additional military aid to Israel.
The U.S. has provided significant aid to Israel since the 1967 war and especially since the 1973 war against Egypt, Syria and other Arab states, said Mark F. Cancian, a Center for Strategic and International Studies senior adviser.
Trump brought up the aid phaseout in response to a question about antisemitism.
When pressed on why he wants to end the aid, Trump said Israel doesn’t need it, and “why should we suffer the slings from lunatics like an El-Sayed when they don’t need it?”
Trump’s remarks are his highest-profile discussion of the topic, but Trump “is just repeating months-old news,” said Ben Freeman, director of the Democratizing Foreign Policy program at the Quincy Institute.
U.S. and Israeli officials have publicly aired the possibility since the summer.
Netanyahu said in a June 1 letter to U.S. Rep Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., “The time has now arrived for us to move from aid recipient to partner.”
Also in June, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at a U.S. House Appropriations Committee meeting that within 10 years, Israelis wanted to continue to buy defense products from the U.S. but not receive “any sort of assistance” to do so. Mirroring a phaseout of economic aid to Israel in the early 2000s, Rubio said Israel would “like to go from the numbers they’re getting now to slowly less every year, until the number hits zero.”
A phaseout would represent a turnabout for Trump. In 2024, Trump slammed President Joe Biden, falsely saying Biden wanted to cut off all aid to Israel when the U.S. delayed shipment of bombs amid concerns about civilian deaths in Gaza.
Middle East experts said a phaseout would not turn off the spigot of U.S. assistance to Israel.
“In addition to these direct grants, the U.S. continues to back Israel financially through $9 billion in active loan guarantees and billions more in unclassified regional military operations,” said Joshua Landis, who chairs the University of Oklahoma’s international and area studies department.
In addition, the House passed the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2027, which includes a provision to integrate Israel into U.S. defense research, development, testing, evaluation and data sharing in such areas as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, cyber defense, biotechnology, counter-drone technology and missile defense.
“The provision would arguably do more to intertwine the U.S. military with the Israeli military than the more than $200 billion (inflation adjusted) in military assistance Israel has received from the U.S. since its founding in 1948,” Freeman wrote in May.
The measure passed with a majority of Democrats voting against it, citing opposition to the Iran war and the Israel provision. It has not received a vote in the Senate .
Trump confirmed on “Fox & Friends” that Israel would continue to be able to buy weapons from the U.S., saying, “Oh yes, they can buy whatever they want.”
Experts said it’s unlikely that Israel would see any negative consequences if the annual aid lapses.
“Israel has benefited enormously from the aid, which has supported Israeli arms industries and facilitated Israel’s multiple wars,” said Barbara Slavin, a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center, a foreign-policy think tank. “But it can probably manage without it.”
Still, Trump’s plan “reduces a very powerful talking point on the part of Israel’s detractors largely in the Democratic Party but also in the Republican Party,” said Aaron David Miller, a State Department official from 1978 to 2003 under Democratic and Republican administrations.
Miller said he doesn’t see the U.S. going through with ending the agreement.
A memorandum of understanding is an executive branch agreement, but Congress has to approve the funding every year through the appropriations process.
Landis said there’s no guarantee that Congress would go along with Trump’s proposal, and if he vetoes such funding, there may not be enough votes to override his veto.
The issue could remain potent in political rhetoric.
“I expect there will be spirited debates about Israel aid in the next Congress and in the 2028 presidential campaign,” Slavin said.
PolitiFact Staff Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this article.
RELATED : A controversial ad and Democratic infighting: What El-Sayed has said about Israel and US services
RELATED : 2026 Election Day: Live midterm fact-checks of voting misinformation, candidates